Product Code Database
|349x349px]] Foot fetishism, also known as foot partialism or podophilia, refers to a sexual interest in feet. Similar to other Sexual fetishism, 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 sexual activity involving feet being the only way that the fetishist can Orgasm. In 2006, it was the most commonly discussed type of Partialism fantasy in pornographic , and is the most common type of culturally atypical body part partialism, with studies estimating that 14% of Americans have somehow involved feet in sex once in their lifetime, though the amount of individuals who are only able to or usually prefer to climax to feet is likely smaller. It is most common in men, with a slight increase in gay and bisexual men, and is least common in heterosexual women. Eastern subjects are more likely to report an interest in feet.
The appeal of foot fetishism like with other fetishes is Idiosyncrasy, common reasons cited by foot fetishists in studies include an element of Sadomasochism, 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. Traditional attitudes related to femininity and masculinity have also been noted in terms of symbolic parts of the fetish. 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 Psychodynamics factors. Issues with the brain such as epilepsy and lesions can result in suddenly gaining or losing sexual interests, including fetishes like feet.
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. The medical treatment of those with foot fetishism that is considered pathological is the same as other fetishes and , which is primarily focused on reducing shame regarding the sexual fantasy in psychotherapy, and if absolutely needed, pharmacological treatments to reduce impulsive behavior such as or medications that directly inhibit the sexual libido, such as , as well as the treatment of co-morbid disorders due to stress being a common trigger for impulsive sexual behavior.
In a 1994 study, 45% of those with a foot fetish were found to be aroused by smelly socks or Foot odor.
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.).
According to Ian Kerner, foot fetishism is the most common form of sexual fetish related to the body.
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. AOL's Accidental Release of Search Data – The Sexmind of America. aphrodisiology.com, accessed June 2007
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 as part of an effort to chart interest in BDSM 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 in the whole sample of both controls and kinksters, with a correlation towards the S&M group alongside other fetishes noted such as leather and latex.
In "Tell Me What You Want" by Justin Lehmiller, about 14% of all United States respondents of both sexes claimed to have had a sexual experience involving feet at least once in their life. 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, and that cultural taboos regarding feet make the reasons for choosing feet in sexual activity manifold (the subjects may not necessarily have involved feet from sexual arousal to the object itself), with a general pattern of the "American id" being focused on intentionally breaking social norms in sexual activities.
Foot fetishism of some sort is much more common in the Eastern world, with about 76% of Iran men and 28% of Iranian women reporting some sort of interest in feet during sex.
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 Insular cortex, which are all connected to erogenous zones and have complex relations to Human sexuality, , and prosocial behavior. These areas primarily develop prenatally.
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.
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.
Other brain lesions have also been noted to affect sexuality and fetishism in different ways, with Hypothalamus lesions being a similar example to the symptoms experiences in temporal lobe epilepsy.
The correlation between sexual fetishism and personality is often debated in terms of what factors matter for development. A large scale Swedish study had found that those who had less interest in romantic parts of a relationship and rated themselves as being more dissatisfied with life were more likely to have partialist and general fetishism and other paraphilias, and that those who responded positively to having an atypical sexual interest were more likely to have others. Fetishists were more likely to suffer from substance use disorders, masturbated more frequently in adolescence and in the present, and reported less opportunities for hands-on romantic or sexual activity in adolescence, regardless of their sexual performance in adulthood.
In a study of 262 homosexual and bisexual males who were part of a foot fetishist organization in the 90's, Wernberg et al. found that while 80% respondents did not report child abuse (unlike some other paraphiliac classes like Biastophilia respondents), about half reported "no significant friendships" in adolescence, and of about 20% of respondents who felt comfortable answering open-ended questions about the development of their fetish reported various scenarios, with the only commonality being the association between articles of clothing, sneakers and feet being part of individuals they found attractive or with sex. Wernberg claimed that the study showed a cultural and personalized cause of foot fetishism due to the selectivity of scenarios regarding feet, with examples such as that over 60% of respondents attracted to shoes reporting that they would not be interested in unworn shoes (with the rest saying that they preferred to fantasize about the potential wearer of one in thrift stores or in photos on magazines), and that the subjective attractiveness of the person with the foot or shoes mattered. Foot fetishists also psychologically clustered different types of shoewear to different classes of people that they found attractive, with sneaker fetishists often associating them with young gay men and boots with domineering men. About 75% of the shoe fetishists said that the attributes of the wearer alongside the shoes was necessary for arousal. The social and gender implications of the wearer of the shoes/bearer of the feet was also important to the fetishists. (2026). 9780131703506, Pearson Education. ISBN 9780131703506
Wernberg showed that like with other paraphilic interests, many of the foot fetishists had other paraphilic sexual interests, with about 66% reporting having engaged in BDSM at some point in their lifes, and about 30% of them saying that "all or most" sexual contact involving feet from them was as part of a greater role as a sadist/masochist in sexual roleplay. About 58% also were attracted to clothing and undergarments, particularly the smell. Foot fetishists are usually able to get some form of sexual partner to comply with their foot fetish unlike other particular fetishes, which Wernberg puts primarily on the commonality of shoewear and footwear as a sign of sex in Western culture and the relative innocence of the fetish perceived by the public in comparison to others that may be seen as more disturbing or offensive. (2026). 9780131703506, Pearson Education. ISBN 9780131703506 The psychodynamic potrayal of fetishists as often having been either socially or sexually isolated teenagers who developed the fetish as part of sexual daydreaming about the sex most preferred to their sexual orientation and/or those exposed to the object in a sexual way that felt positive at an early age was used as an explanation for the 50% rate of social withdrawal by Wernberg, as well as a case study of a foot fetishist in 1979 who reported the former model of development as a child.
A small scale study of heterosexual participants assigned heterosexual men a series of women, where they were then asked which one they wanted to date. If rejected, they continued the process over and over until accepted, and those who were accepted were asked to continue with the date independently outside of the study if they wished. Compared to a small non-fetishistic control group, men who were rejected more often were more likely to rate the feet, legs, Panties, lingerie and legs of women in pornographic pictures they were given to be much more arousing on their own versus men who got accepted closer to the beginning of the study and the control group. The study aimed to test whether or not personality factors could be antecedent of partialism and fetishism as a whole. The suggested mechanism is that fetishists aim their erotic feelings towards body parts associated with potential partners, rather than the psychological concept of a romantic or sexual relationship with the partner in an example of adaptive social learning theory and operant conditioning, where the fetishist learns to divert their sexual expectations elsewhere as part of a learnt behavior.
Sensory experiences such as licking and smelling foot odor were rated as arousing because of their perceived intimacy. The massaging of the feet of a partner or attempting to apply pleasing sensory experiences to the feet to please their partner was considered arousing by some foot fetishists in surveys, as they deemed the feet to be a private, erogenous zone for foreplay. Sadomasochism was also listed as a reason for enjoying feet during sex, with the mental concept of the feet as a dirty area and its usage by a sadistic dominant to be a key part of this particular fantasy.
Eastern subjects are significantly more likely to say that they have an interest in feet, which an Iranian research group attributed to the role of feet in Islam being a sensitive and "dirty" area, stigmas about sex in Islam, and the body covers that women must often wear in these countries being a great source of partialist fantasies that can develop, with over 76% of Iranian males reporting other object and body part fetishes other than feet as well, explaining the irregularity between psychodynamic factors observed in Western studies and the lack-thereof seen in the Iranian sample between studies in the West and in the East. The authors criticized the current literature available as having an overly Western focused and psychiatric focus as a form of cultural bias in studies.
Justin Lehmiller has commented that in his American surveys of sexuality, people who report "taboo" fetishes such as feet and others are more likely to be religious, to be socially conservative, and to have felt sexually repressed some way in childhood, which he attributes to Western attitudes on sex, particularly conservative attitudes that these subjects would've heard the most of, often causing people under them to feel as if they need to "break out" and intentionally break norms and attitudes in society in private in order to express themselves, which he calls the "American id" of attitudes regarding sex.
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.
/ref> . Chinese men would often lick the heels and toes of women with bound feet, and took pleasure in the odor generated from the small shoes used during the process. Despite its symbol as a sign of wealth and feminine beauty, women with bound feet were often permanently disabled from walking normally and suffered gangrene of the extremities.]]In ancient China, foot binding was considered to be a sign of great wealth and sexual beauty in the women who had the practice done to them, despite the severe physical side effects and the high risk of medical sequelae like gangrene that often accompanied it. Young Chinese girls would often be forced under threats of physical punishment to have their foot bound in a tiny shoe, which would usually build up malodorous scents over the summer, originating from the sweat from body and environmental heat, and blood and pus from the painful deformations caused by the binding and tightness of the shoe and infections originating in the toes, caused by ischemia from the bandaging, which was often placed in the middle of the foot. The odor was considered to be sexually arousing by Chinese men, and licking the feet, sucking on the toes, and smelling the foot odor from the aforementioned process was a common practice with male partners of women who were forced to undergo the physical deformations. Chinese men considered the unique "lotus feet" from this process as an area of sexualized beauty, similar to how many cultures view the female Breast and buttocks, with historical Chinese erotic paintings considering them to be taboo and erotic enough that alongside other objects such as the breasts, they were not shown. The practice was so widespread and common that some Chinese provinces mandated all young girls born or married within their territories to be forcibly bound if not already done so. Up to 50% of Chinese women had bound feet, with levels nearing to 100% for wealthy ethnic Han Chinese women. Sigmund Freud considered this to be a major widespread case of foot fetishism within a society, particularly foot fetishism directed at the malodorous feet that was generated by the binding process. Since the 19th century, projects from religious Missionary and women's rights groups had resulted in the practice of foot binding being banned in China in 1919, with only a handful of elderly women from the era still being alive today. Foot binding fetishism as a whole in China has effectively died out.
Foot fetishists, alongside other fetishists, are often portrayed in TV shows and other media as sexually predatory people who commit sexual offenses. The vast majority of foot fetishists, however, include their fetishism in consensual sex. 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.
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 Cinephilia. 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.
Sigmund Freud considered foot binding as a form of fetishism, although this view was disputed.
|
|
