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Foot fetishism or podophilia is a pronounced sexual interest in feet.

Scope of foot fetishism

In clinical terms, a fetish is a stimulus that is a requirement for sexual arousal to occur (also called an "exclusive paraphilia"). Therefore, a person who can derive sexual arousal from the human foot along with other more conventional stimuli (i.e. kissing, petting, etc) would not necessarily meet the clinical definition of having a fetish. This article focuses on arousal by feet in general (i.e., the popular use definition of fetish), and not on the clinical definition of foot fetishism.

For a foot fetishist, points of attraction include the shape and size of the foot and toes, the texture of the skin, cleanliness (or lack thereof), state of dress (i.e., barefoot or clad in socks/nylons) and odor. Foot lovers may enjoy sniffing, tickling, kissing, licking, and/or lovemaking with the objects of their affections.

Like other paraphilias, foot fetishism encompasses a wide range of predilections; one foot fetishist may be aroused by scenarios that another fetishist finds unerotic or even repulsive. Websites exist that cater to a number of specialized scenarios, including: feet resting on car dashboards, feet pushing down on gas or brake pedals, feet crushing objects like balloons or toy cars, women walking barefoot on uncomfortable surfaces such as hot pavement, sharp gravel, rocks, snow, etc., feet being pushed into mud or food, foot torture (i.e. having the soles of their feet tortured or punished by whippings, hot wax, or burnt with cigarettes), and feet being bound and tickled.

Aretifism, a sexual attraction to people who are without footwear, is a synonym to podophilia, although the connotation is slightly different (attraction to the unclad foot vs. attraction to the foot itself).

Prevalence of Foot Fetishism

Fetishist behavior is unlikely to be reported; its prevalence is unknown. However, it is one of the most common fetishes in males.

An informal study was conducted in 2001 to determine the prevalence of certain fetishes. More than 72,000 Adult-oriented Yahoo! Clubs (now Yahoo! Groups) were identified, of which 741 were found to be foot-related. By assuming that the people who used Yahoo! Clubs represented a balanced cross-section of the world's sexual preferences, it was estimated that 1.14% of people had foot fetishes.

Proposed explanations for foot fetishism

See also Modern Theories of Fetishism

Neurologist Vilayanur S. Ramachandran proposed that foot fetishism is caused by the feet and the genitals occupying adjacent areas of the somatosensory cortex, possibly entailing some neural crosstalk between the two.

Researchers have hypothesized that foot fetishism increases during epidemics of sexually transmitted diseases. In one study, the frequency of foot-fetish depictions in the mass-circulation pornographic literature was measured over a 30-yr. interval. An exponential increase was noted during the period of the current AIDS epidemic. Increased interest in feet as sexual objects has also been observed during the syphilis epidemics of the 16th and 19th centuries in Europe.

See also

• Sexual fetishism
• Shoe fetishism
• Trampling
• Foot worship
• Elmer Batters
• Lissa Noble
• Tickling fetishism
• Shoe dangling
• Shoeplay
• Toe sucking

References

1. Kippen, Cameron (2006). The History of Footwear - Foot Sex. http://podiatry.curtin.edu.au/fetish.html, last accessed July 2006.
2. Kippen, Cameron (2006). The History of Footwear - Foot Sex. http://podiatry.curtin.edu.au/fetish.html, last accessed July 2006.
3. Giannini, A J; Colapietro, G; Slaby, A E; Melemis, S M; Bowman, R K (October 1998). Sexualization of the female foot as a response to sexually transmitted epidemics: A preliminary study. Psychological Reports. Volume 83(2): 491–498.
4. Anonymous. Fetish Psychology http://www.geocities.com/gungesurvey/psychology.html, last accessed September 2006.
5. Kringelbach, Morten. Bodily Illusions. http://www.kringelbach.dk/Preprint_Beagle_BodilyIllusions.html, last accessed Sept 2006.
6. Giannini AJ, Colapietro G, Slaby AE, Melemis SM, Bowman, RK (1998). Sexualization of the female foot as a response to sexually transmitted epidemics: a preliminary study. Psychological Reports, Vol. 83, No. 2, 1998, pp. 491-498
7. Kippen, Cameron. The History of Footwear - The Sexy Foot. http://podiatry.curtin.edu.au/sexy.html#vd, last accessed September 2006.

External links

• The History of Footwear - The Sexy Foot
• Sexuality.org - Alt.sex.fetish.feet FAQ
• foot fetish community
• foot fetish news group

• Foot fetishism
• Paraphilia
• Sexual fetishism