Foot fetishism

The Countess with the whip. Illustration by Martin van Maële.

Foot fetishism, foot partialism, foot worship, or podophilia is a pronounced sexual interest in feet.^[1] It is the most common form of sexual preference for otherwise non-sexual objects or body parts.^[2]

Characteristics

Foot fetish has been defined as a pronounced sexual interest in the feet or footwear. Freud considered foot binding as a form of fetishism.^[3] For a foot fetishist, points of attraction include the shape and size of the foot and toes (i.e., long toes, short toes, pointed toes, high arches, slender soles, fat toes, long toenails, short toenails, small feet, toenail color), jewelry, toe rings, ankle bracelets, treatments e.g.: french pedicure, state of dress (i.e., barefoot, flip flops, or clad in socks or nylons), odor, and any form of sensory interaction, e.g. licking, sucking, tickling, people giving foot jobs, pedal pumping and trampling/stomping.^[3]

Research

Relative frequency

In order to estimate the relative frequency of fetishes researchers at the University of Bologna examined 381 Internet discussions of her foot fetish groups, in which at least 5,000 people had been participating. Researchers estimated the prevalences of different fetishes based on (a) the number of discussion groups devoted to a particular fetish, (b) the number of individuals participating in the groups and (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, footwear (shoes, boots, etc.) was most preferred (64%).^[4][5]

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.^[6]

Relationships to health and disease

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 The Ohio State University ^[7] 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. 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 foot play was viewed as a safe-sex alternative. However, the researchers noted that these epidemics overlapped periods of relative female emancipation. Sexual focus on female feet was also hypothesized to have been a reflection of a more dominant posture of the woman in sexual-social relations. (The first surviving reference of foot fetish is by Bertold of Regensburg in 1220. ^[8]) ^[9]

Causation

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.^[10]

Treatment

There are two possible treatments for fetishism: cognitive therapy and psychoanalysis, though treatment does not have to be necessary. Medicine can also be used but generally this is not very effective. All these may be complemented by additional treatments.

Cognitive therapy

Cognitive therapy seeks to change the patient's behavior without analyzing how and why it shows up. It is based on the idea that fetishism is the result of conditioning or imprinting.

One possible therapy is aversive conditioning: the patient is being confronted with his fetish and as soon as sexual arousal starts, exposed to a displeasing stimulus. It is reported that in earlier times painful stimuli such as electric shocks have been used as aversive stimulus. Today a common aversive stimulus are photographs that show unpleasing scenes such as penned in genitals. In a variant called assisted aversive conditioning, an assistant releases abominable odors as aversive stimulus.

Another possible therapy is a technique called thought stop: the therapist asks the patient to think of his fetish and suddenly cries out "stop!". The patient will be irritated, his line of thought broken. After analyzing the effects of the sudden break together, the therapist will teach the patient to use this technique by himself to interrupt thoughts about his fetish and thus prevent undesired behavior.

Psychoanalysis

Psychoanalysis tries to spot the traumatic unconscious experience that caused the fetishism in first instance. Bringing this unconscious knowledge to consciousness and thus enabling the patient to work up his trauma rationally and emotionally shall relieve him from his problems. As opposed to cognitive therapy, psychoanalysis tackles the cause itself.

There are versatile attempts at this analyzing process, including talk therapy, dream analysis and play therapy. Which method will be chosen depends upon the problem itself, the patient's attitude and reactions to certain methods and the therapist's education and preference.

This type of treatment is rarely used.

Medication

Pharmaceutical treatment consists of various forms of drugs that inhibit the production of sex steroids, above all male testosterone and female estrogen. By cutting down the level of sex steroids, sexual desire is diminished. Thus, in theory, a patient might gain the ability to control his fetish and reasonably process his own thoughts without being distracted by sexual arousal. Also, the application may give the patient relief in everyday life, enabling him to ignore his fetish and get back to daily routine. Other research has assumed that fetishes may be like obsessive-compulsive disorders, and has looked into the use of psychiatric drugs (serotonin uptake inhibitors and dopamine blockers) for controlling paraphilias that interfere with a person's ability to function.

Although ongoing research has shown positive results in single case studies with some drugs, e. g. with topiramate^[11], there is not yet any medicament that tackles fetishism itself. Because of that, physical treatment is only suitable to support one of the psychological methods.

Famous foot fetishists

Celebrities are listed alphabetically by last name and single name.

Please see the discussion page before adding to this section.

See also

• Barefoot
• Elmer Batters
• Foot binding
• Shoe fetishism

References