Foot fetishism, also known as foot partialism or podophilia, refers to a sexual interest in feet. [1] [2] Similar to other fetishes, individuals with a foot fetish experience varying degrees of sexual attraction to feet, from merely viewing the foot as a pleasing part of the human body alongside other parts, to sexually activity involving feet being the only way that the fetishist can climax. It is the most commonly discussed type of sexual fetishism for a body part fetish in pornographic Internet forums, and is the most common type of culturally atypical body part fetishism, with studies estimating it to affect 14% of the human population in some way, though the amount of individuals who are only able to or usually prefer to climax to feet is likely smaller. [3] It is most common in men, with a slight increase in gay and bisexual men, and is least common in heterosexual women. [4] [5]
The appeal of foot fetishism like with other fetishes is idiosyncratic, common reasons cited by foot fetishists in studies include an element of humiliation and domination, the sensitivity of the feet and its usage as an erogenous zone in sex, and as part of a greater form of olfactophilia due to foot odor. [6] Elements of traditional attitudes related to femininity and masculinity have also been noted in terms of symbolic parts of the fetish. [3] The cause of any type of fetishism is largely speculative, but is thought to be a complex interplay of events in prenatal neurodevelopment, cultural, and psychodynamic factors. In rare cases, temporal lobe epilepsy can cause extreme displays of foot fetishism and other paraphilias.
Foot fetishism, when it is not accompanied by antisocial expressions of the fetish such as burglary of footwear or non-consensual contact, or considerable psycho-social distress or impairment in daily life, is considered by contemporary psychiatric and medical institutions to be a valid expression of human sexuality and not pathological. [7] [8] The medical treatment of those with foot fetishism that is considered pathological is the same as other fetishes and paraphilias, which is primarily focused on reducing shame regarding the sexual fantasy in psychotherapy, and if absolutely needed, psycho-pharmacological treatments to reduce impulsive behavior such as SSRIs or medications that directly inhibit the sexual libido, such as antiandrogens, as well as the treatment of co-morbid disorders due to stress being a common trigger for impulsive sexual behavior. [9] [10]
Shoe fetishism and boot fetishism can be connected to foot fetishism, though they are not mutually inclusive with foot fetishism.
For a foot fetishist, points of attraction may include the shape and size of feet, feet soles, toes, jewelry (such as toe rings or anklets), treatments (such as massaging, washing partner's feet, or painting partner's toenails), state of dress (such as barefoot, flip flops, or high heels), [11] or sensory interaction (such as smelling, kissing, or rubbing of feet and genitals). [12] [13]
In a 1994 study, 45% of those with a foot fetish were found to be aroused by smelly socks or feet, making it one of the most widespread forms of olfactophilia. [14]
To estimate the relative frequency of fetishes, in 2006 researchers at the University of Bologna 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:
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.). [4]
According to Ian Kerner, foot fetishism is the most common form of sexual fetish related to the body. [15]
In August 2006, AOL 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. [16]
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 76 of the 459 male respondents (17%) and 23 of the 565 female respondents (4%) answered "Agree" or "Strongly agree" to a fetish interest in feet. [17]
In "Tell Me Me What You Want" by Justin Lehmiller, about 14% of respondants claimed to have some sort of sexual interest in feet. [5] In his study, gay and bisexual men were the most likely to have sort of fetishism of feet, and heterosexual women were the least likely. He stressed that the number of those with a high amount of foot fetishism (those who are only able to climax from feet or prefer feet compared to other types of activity) are likely lower than the study rate.
Similar to other forms of sexual fetishism and other paraphilias, 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. [18] Currently widely accepted etiological models hypothesize paraphilias to originate from a complex set of neurological, cultural, and psychodynamic factors in a given person. [19] Different paraphilias may have different causes, and there is no guarantee that two persons with the same paraphilias as the other would be interested in the same aspects of it or have the same ultimate cause for its development. [20] [21] For example, some individuals with a foot fetish are attracted to foot odor, while others are not. [4] Culturally, ideas on practices regarding "beautiful feet" often influence the types of foot fetishes that are developed in that society, such as foot binding fetishism in China. [22]
The cortical homunculus is a "map" of sensory and motor neurons. Neuroscientist V. S. Ramachandran proposed that the closeness of genital-related neurons to neurons regulating sensory and motor functions in the toes and feet may lead to foot fetishism. [23] Ramachandran did not provide experimental evidence for this claim in his original work. A 2013 study involving 800 subjects criticized this hypothesis, showing that there was very little neuronal activation from foot stimulation or inter-correlation between foot regions and others. [24] The study also conducted a meta-analysis that showed that there are no known cases of erotic stimuli being produced from neurostimulation in the cortex.
The authors did not rule in or out that other areas relating to emotional or erogenous stimulation may have been involved. The other proposed brain areas for researching into similar sensory zones in the study were the thalamus, the periaqueductal gray, and the insula, which are all connected to erogenous zones and have complex relations to sexuality, emotions, and prosocial behavior. These areas primarily develop prenatally.
In extremely rare cases of lateral temporal lobe epilepsy, foot fetishism and other paraphilias are known to spontaneously occur. These episodes are often characterized by extremely sexually impulsive behavior, such as a foot fetishist with epilepsy licking the feet of others unprompted, stealing items of sexual interest (in this scenario, footwear) and public masturbation or sexually assaulting hospital staff in those whom are institutionalized. The vast majority or all of the fetishism and impulsive behavior immediately disappears once treatment of the epilepsy occurs, leading to the hypothesis that the temporal lobe may have a key role in fetishism and other paraphilias. It is common for people with epilepsy to report significant changes in sexuality after a lobectomy of one or both of their temporal lobes, with a rarer amount documenting a perceived wiping of an existing sexual interest or a new one occurring. [25] A case study of a man with a fetish for safety-pins in early childhood who later on developed absence seizures became well known after a coincidental surgery to fix the epilepsy ended up accidentally ridding him of his fetishism towards safety-pins. [26] [27]
In a case study of two intellectually disabled adults who had severe forms of foot and shoe fetishism since early childhood that involved sexually assaulting others by licking and touching the feet and shoes of complete strangers, the usage of carbamazepine for temporal lobe epilepsy detected during a screening accidentally caused a complete cessation of any fetishism of the feet in one of the subjects and caused partial remission of foot fetishism in the other, while completely stopping the impulsive sexual behavior. [28]
Temporal lobe dysfunction has been noted in studies regarding other paraphilias such as pedophilia and those with hyposexuality. The relation between the temporal lobe and sexual dysfunction, or why fetishes can sometimes be wiped or gained from dysfunction of the temporal lobe are poorly understood. [29]
Mechanisms regarding classical and operant conditioning have been proposed as potential explanation for how links between fetishistic objects like feet can become sexualized overtime. [30] For example, a future fetishist may notice a correlation between feet and footwear like high-heels and other sexually appealing attributes, which when viewed over and over again, result in development of the fetish. Masturbation is a proposed explanation for how the fetish sustains itself into adulthood once it initially appears. [31] Personality traits linked to susceptibility to conditioning such as introversion have been found in fetishists, who are hypothesized to be more susceptible to noticing the correlation between the fetish object and other sexual stimuli due to increased internal thinking regarding the stimuli. [30]
Desmond Morris considered foot fetishism the result of mal-imprinting at an early age, the tactile pressure of a foot or shoe being important in this. [32] Sigmund Freud's reading of foot fetishism also involved early imprinting, but he considered the smell of feet significant in this.
Richard von Krafft-Ebing in his book Psychopathia Sexualis attributed the cause of fetishes like foot fetishes to be largely due to childhood events which "imprint" erotic memories related to the object via either accidental association or a mental correlation between the object and concomitant sexual activity. The initial "spark" is forgotten, while the sexual feeling is then transferred to adulthood. [33] Krafft-Ebing claimed that hand and foot fetishism were largely correlated with other paraphilias in his other case studies, particularly sadism and masochism.
The lovemap theory by John Money attempts to explain sexual interests in terms of a "map" of what an individual finds erotic. He hypothesized that all humans possess innate concepts of what they find attractive that are unique to them that are developed over time during childhood and puberty. Forced hyposexuality (or forced avoidance of an object), abuse, lack of sexual play or messaging regarding sexual intercourse, or an otherwise non-sexual event that is paired with sexual stimuli (i.e a coincidental erection) are hypothesized root causes for culturally alien atypical sexuality and fetishism under this model. [34] Another explanation proposed for fetishism is that an early childhood event that is mistakenly implanted by the brain as typical sexual stimuli for the lovemap may be discovered later as an adult via pornography or self experimentation.
When classifying paraphilias, Money had claimed that sexual expressions of fetishism and paraphilias are the individual in question attempting to reconcile with the societal disgust, illegality, or negative internal feelings they may have regarding the paraphilia/fetish. Under the lovemap model, Money suggests that fetishism results from a conflict where the individual must weigh the taboo of the fetish from their culture and their unique sexual needs as a human being. Fetishism is the result of the individual attempting to gain control of what they believe to be an transgression of their sexual needs, where they replace the socially acceptable lover with the object to save society from their taboo while claiming victory. Due to social pressure, the individual must repeat this ritual repeatedly, which reinforces the fetish without ultimately satisfying the need for independence. [34] [35] [36]
Georges Bataille saw the lure of the feet as linked to their anatomical baseness (abjection). [37]
Sigmund Freud saw the fetishism of toes on the foot as a surrogate for the penis that served as a primitive psychological defense against the fear of the shattering of the castration complex (and a defense against the resulting castration anxiety), which is the belief that men and women both have penises that Freud hypothesized was a key part of the phallic stage of his model of human development, which in the same model is later shattered, marking the end of the phallic stage. [38] Otto Fenichel 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. [39] 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. [40]
Some researchers have hypothesized that foot fetishism increases as a response to epidemics of sexually transmitted infections. In one study, conducted by A. James Giannini at Ohio State University, an increased interest in feet as sexual objects was observed during the great gonorrhea epidemic of twelfth-century Europe, and the syphilis epidemics of the 16th and 19th centuries in Europe. [41] 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. In these cases, sexual footplay was viewed as a safe sex alternative. [42] However, the researchers noted that these epidemics overlapped periods of relative female emancipation. [43]
Foot fetishism by itself is not considered to be an issue under contemporary psychiatric guidelines. [7] [8] It may however need treatment with psychotherapy, an SSRI and/or antiandrogen therapy if the individual either has extreme distress related to the fetish that is causing troubles with living, such as excessive impulsive purchases of fetish wear, or if the individual engages with non-consensual contact with others to fufill the fetish or engages in contact with others that are not generally considered to be able to consent to sexual activity, such as children and the intellectually disabled. The DSM considers six months of these symptoms at minimum to be a sufficient time for a diagnosis to occur. Treating co-morbid disorders (if present) is usually advised as stress can trigger impulsive behavior and lead to the individual using a paraphilia as a compulsive way to de-stress. [10] [27] There is no time limit needed for the ICD entries for fetishism. [44]
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. [45] [46] The Hindu god Brahma was aroused by the sight of Parvati's feet in the eighth-century text Skanda Purana . [47]
Foot fetishists, alongside other fetishists, are often portrayed in TV shows and other media as sexually predatory people who commit sexual offenses. [48] The vast majority of foot fetishists, however, include their fetishism in consensual sex, and do not use feet as a complete substitute for their whole partner. [3] A significant amount of the population views foot fetishism as disagreeable, and personality attitudes regarding sexual morality and sexually conservative attitudes are largely correlated with reported disgust levels towards fetishism in general. [48]
American film-maker Quentin Tarantino often includes forms of foot fetishism within pieces of media that he directs, and has made statements regarding the inclusion of feet in his films due to the attention it has received from film-buffs. He has called himself a "foot-fan" and has claimed to be fond of feet, though he has also stated in separate interviews that the inclusions of feet within his films are merely a part of his creative process and are not meant to be pornographic in nature. [48] [49]
Sigmund Freud considered foot binding as a form of fetishism, [50] [51] although this view was disputed.[ by whom? ] [52]
Media related to foot fetishism at Wikimedia Commons