Foot fetishism, also known as foot partialism or podophilia, is a pronounced
sexual interest in
feet.
It is the most common form of
sexual fetishism
Sexual fetishism or erotic fetishism is a sexual fixation on a nonliving object or nongenital body part. The object of interest is called the fetish; the person who has ''a fetish'' for that object is a fetishist. A sexual fetish may be regard ...
for otherwise non-sexual objects or body parts.
Characteristics and related fetishes
Foot fetishism has been defined as a pronounced sexual interest in feet. For a foot fetishist, points of attraction may include the shape and size of feet, feet soles, toes, jewelry (e.g.,
toe ring
A toe ring is a ring made out of metals and non-metals worn on any of the toes. The second toe of either foot is where they are worn most commonly. This is because proportionately it is the longest toe and thus the easiest toe to put a ring on ...
s,
anklets, etc.), treatments (such as massaging, washing partner's feet or painting partner's toenails), state of dress (e.g.,
barefoot
Barefoot is the state of not wearing any footwear.
There are health benefits and some risks associated with going barefoot. Shoes, while they offer protection, can limit the flexibility, strength, and mobility of the foot and can lead to h ...
,
flip flops,
ballet flats
Ballet flats are women's shoes for everyday wear which are similar to/inspired by a women's ballet shoes, with a very thin heel or the appearance of no heel at all. The style sometimes features a ribbon-like binding around the low tops of the slip ...
,
sandals,
high heels,
hosiery, socked feet, etc.),
foot odor or sensory interaction (e.g., rubbing the foot,
smelling, tickling, licking,
rubbing genitals on foot, etc.).
Extensions of this fetish include
shoes
A shoe is an item of footwear intended to protect and comfort the human foot. They are often worn with a sock. Shoes are also used as an item of decoration and fashion. The design of shoes has varied enormously through time and from culture t ...
,
socks,
olfactophilia
Olfactophilia or osmolagnia is a paraphilia for, or sexual arousal by, smells and odors emanating from the body, especially the sexual areas. Sigmund Freud used the term ''osphresiolagnia'' in reference to pleasure caused by odors.
''Campbell's P ...
(odor fetishism) and
tickling.
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts i ...
also considered
foot binding as a form of fetishism, although this view was disputed.
Odor fetishism (pertaining to the smell of feet) seems to play a major role in foot fetishism, and is closely related to it: in a 1994 study, 45% of those with a foot fetish were found to be aroused by
smelly socks
Smelly socks are socks that have acquired a strong odour due to prolonged wearing. Their odour, which is complex and remains the object of study, is a mixture of ammonia, fatty acids (in particular, isovaleric acid), and lactic acid.
Odorous s ...
or feet, making it one of the most widespread forms of
olfactophilia
Olfactophilia or osmolagnia is a paraphilia for, or sexual arousal by, smells and odors emanating from the body, especially the sexual areas. Sigmund Freud used the term ''osphresiolagnia'' in reference to pleasure caused by odors.
''Campbell's P ...
.
In extreme cases, an individual with a pronounced sexual interest in feet could possibly be diagnosed with fetishism disorder (characterized by the eroticization of non-living objects and body parts) if they are in adherence with the following symptoms:
* Experiencing recurrent sexually arousing fantasies, urges, or behaviors involving the use of non-living objects over a period of at least six months.
* These fantasies, urges or behaviors cause significant distress in a social, occupational or personal environment.
* The fetish objects are not limited to articles of clothing or devices used for genital stimulation.
Relative frequency
To estimate the relative frequency of fetishes, in 2006 researchers at the
University of Bologna
The University of Bologna ( it, Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna, UNIBO) is a public research university in Bologna, Italy. Founded in 1088 by an organised guild of students (''studiorum''), it is the oldest university in contin ...
examined 381 Internet discussions of fetish groups, in which at least 5,000 people had been participating. Researchers estimated the prevalence of different fetishes based on the following elements:
* (a) the number of discussion groups devoted to a particular fetish;
* (b) the number of individuals participating in the groups;
* (c) the number of messages exchanged.
It was concluded that the most common fetishes were for body parts or for objects usually associated with body parts (33% and 30%, respectively). Among those people preferring body parts, feet and toes were preferred by the greatest number, with 47% of those sampled preferring them. Among those people preferring objects related to body parts, 32% were in groups related to footwear (shoes, boots, etc.).
Foot fetishism is the most common form of sexual fetish related to the body.
In August 2006,
AOL
AOL (stylized as Aol., formerly a company known as AOL Inc. and originally known as America Online) is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City. It is a brand marketed by the current incarnation of Yahoo! Inc. ...
released a database of the search terms submitted by their subscribers. In ranking only those phrases that included the word "fetish", it was found that the most common search was for feet.
Foot fetishism may be more common in men than in women. Researchers using a polling agency to conduct a survey of the general Belgian population in 2017 found that of 1027 respondents, 76 of the men (17%) and 23 of the women (4%) answered "Agree" or "Strongly agree" to a fetish interest in feet.
Causes
Similar to other forms of
sexual fetishism
Sexual fetishism or erotic fetishism is a sexual fixation on a nonliving object or nongenital body part. The object of interest is called the fetish; the person who has ''a fetish'' for that object is a fetishist. A sexual fetish may be regard ...
, no consensus has yet been established about the specific causes of foot fetishism. While many works on the topic exist, their conclusions are often regarded as highly speculative. In a general sense, sexual fetishism can be caused by a number of factors, no singular cause for any type of fetishism has been conclusively established.
The
cortical homunculus
A cortical homunculus () is a distorted representation of the human body, based on a neurological "map" of the areas and proportions of the human brain dedicated to processing motor functions, or sensory functions, for different parts of the b ...
(also known as Penfield's Homunculus), a map of the human brain illustrating respective locations for where different parts of the body are processed, shows a possible link between the feet and toes to the genitalia.
There exists controversy regarding this neural crosslink, as some medical professionals have been known to question the simplicity of the map in comparison to reality.
Foot fetishism may be caused by the feet and the genitals occupying adjacent areas of the
somatosensory cortex, possibly entailing some neural crosstalk between the two. Neuroscientist
V. S. Ramachandran
Vilayanur Subramanian Ramachandran (born 10 August 1951) is an Indian-American neuroscientist. He is known for his wide-ranging experiments and theories in behavioral neurology, including the invention of the mirror box. Ramachandran is a dis ...
proposed that an accidental link between these regions could explain the prevalence of foot fetishism.
Desmond Morris
Desmond John Morris FLS ''hon. caus.'' (born 24 January 1928) is an English zoologist, ethologist and surrealist painter, as well as a popular author in human sociobiology. He is known for his 1967 book ''The Naked Ape'', and for his telev ...
considered foot fetishism the result of
mal-imprinting at an early age, the tactile pressure of a foot/shoe being important in this. Freud's reading of foot fetishism also involved early imprinting, but he considered the smell of feet significant in this, as well as the foot as a penis-symbol/surrogate (
castration complex
The castration complex is a concept developed by Sigmund Freud, first presented in 1908, initially as part of his theorisation of the transition in early childhood development from the polymorphous perversity of infantile sexuality to the ‘infant ...
, especially when encountered while voyeuristically exploring the female body from below).
Otto Fenichel
Otto Fenichel (2 December 1897 in Vienna – 22 January 1946 in Los Angeles) was a psychoanalyst of the so-called "second generation".
Education and psychoanalytic affiliations
Otto Fenichel started studying medicine in 1915 in Vienna. Already ...
similarly saw castration fear as significant in foot fetishism, citing a future fetishist who as an adolescent said to himself "You must remember this throughout life – that girls, too, have legs", to protect himself from the fear. Where fear of the (castrated) female body is too great, desire is felt not for shoes on female feet but for women's shoes alone, without women.
Georges Bataille
Georges Albert Maurice Victor Bataille (; ; 10 September 1897 – 9 July 1962) was a French philosopher and intellectual working in philosophy, literature, sociology, anthropology, and history of art. His writing, which included essays, novels ...
saw the lure of the feet as linked to their anatomical baseness (
abjection
Abjection is a concept in critical theory referring to becoming cast off and separated from norms and rules, especially on the scale of society and morality. The term has been explored in post-structuralism as that which inherently disturbs conve ...
).
Health and disease
Some researchers have hypothesized that foot fetishism increases as a response to epidemics of
sexually transmitted diseases. In one study, conducted by Dr. A James Giannini at
Ohio State University
The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best pub ...
, an increased interest in feet as sexual objects was observed during the great
gonorrhea
Gonorrhea, colloquially known as the clap, is a sexually transmitted infection (STI) caused by the bacterium ''Neisseria gonorrhoeae''. Infection may involve the genitals, mouth, or rectum. Infected men may experience pain or burning with u ...
epidemic of twelfth-century Europe, and the
syphilis
Syphilis () is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the bacterium '' Treponema pallidum'' subspecies ''pallidum''. The signs and symptoms of syphilis vary depending in which of the four stages it presents (primary, secondary, latent, a ...
epidemics of the 16th and 19th centuries in Europe. In the same study, the frequency of foot-fetish depictions in
pornographic literature was measured over a 30-year interval. An exponential increase was noted during the period of the current
AIDS epidemic
The global epidemic of HIV/AIDS (human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) began in 1981, and is an ongoing worldwide public health issue. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), as of 2021, HIV/AI ...
. In these cases, sexual footplay was viewed as a
safe sex
Safe sex is sexual activity using methods or contraceptive devices (such as condoms) to reduce the risk of transmitting or acquiring sexually transmitted infections (STIs), especially HIV. "Safe sex" is also sometimes referred to as safer ...
alternative. However, the researchers noted that these epidemics overlapped periods of relative female emancipation.
Society and culture
Some of the earliest recorded instances of foot fetishism occur in the erotic poems ''To a Barefoot Woman'' and ''To a Barefoot Boy'' attributed to the Ancient Greek writer
Philostratus. The Hindu god Shiva was aroused by the sight of Parvati's feet in the eight-century text
Skanda Purana. Another reference to the fetish is made by
Bertold of Regensburg
Bertold of Regensburg (c. 1220 – 13 December 1272), also known as Berthold of RatisbonCoulton, G. G. (1923) ''Life in the Middle Ages''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press was a German preacher during the high Middle Ages.
Life
He was a ...
in 1220.
F. Scott Fitzgerald was described by a
mistress
Mistress is the feminine form of the English word "master" (''master'' + ''-ess'') and may refer to:
Romance and relationships
* Mistress (lover), a term for a woman who is in a sexual and romantic relationship with a man who is married to a d ...
as a foot fetishist, and himself referred to a "Freudian shame about his feet".
Actor
Idris Elba has confirmed in interviews since 2013 that he has a foot fetish,
for example in 2016 telling UK
''Esquire'' "I've got a foot fetish. Women's feet.",
and answering in the affirmative to the question while connected to a
polygraph for
''Vanity Fair'' in 2019.
Other contemporary celebrities who have told interviewers, "I have a foot fetish" (or a slight variation thereof) include
Brooke Burke,
Enrique Iglesias
Enrique Miguel Iglesias Preysler (; (born 8 May 1975) is a Spanish singer and songwriter. He started his recording career in the mid-1990s on the Mexican indie label Fonovisa and became the bestselling Spanish-language act of the decade. By th ...
,
Tommy Lee
Thomas Lee Bass (born October 3, 1962) is an American musician and founding member of the heavy metal band Mötley Crüe. As well as being the band's long-term drummer, Lee founded rap metal band Methods of Mayhem and has pursued solo musical ...
,
Ludacris,
Ricky Martin
Enrique Martín Morales (born December 24, 1971), known professionally as Ricky Martin, is a Puerto Rican singer, songwriter, and actor. He is known for his musical versatility, with his Ricky Martin albums discography, discography spanning ...
,
and
Todd Phillips
Todd Phillips (né Bunzl, born December 20, 1970) is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. He began his career in 1993 and directed films in the 2000s such as ''Road Trip (film), Road Trip'', ''Old School (film), Old School'', ...
.
In 2020 an artist collective released ''This Foot Does Not Exist'', a project that uses
generative adversarial networks to generate new "foot pics" by text message request.
See also
*
Boot fetishism
*
Body odour and sexual attraction
*
Boot worship
Boot worship is the extreme adulation of boots in BDSM, usually carried out while the footwear is being worn by the dominant partner.
It is related to foot worship in a derivative way, in that the adulation may really be attributable to the prox ...
*
Crush fetish
A crush fetish is a fetish and a paraphilia in which sexual arousal is associated with observing objects being crushed or being crushed oneself. The crushed objects vary from inanimate items (e.g., food), to injurious and/or fatal crushing of inv ...
*
Foot odor
*
Footjob
*
Partialism
*
Shoe fetishism
References
Further reading
*
Havelock Ellis
Henry Havelock Ellis (2 February 1859 – 8 July 1939) was an English physician, eugenicist, writer, progressive intellectual and social reformer who studied human sexuality. He co-wrote the first medical textbook in English on homosexuality i ...
(1936), ''Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Vol. II'', New York:
Random House
Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...
*William Rossi (1989), ''The Sex Life of the Foot and Shoe'', Malabar: Krieger Publishing Company.
External links
{{Sex fetish
Foot
Paraphilias
Sexual fetishism