female foot fetish

sex stories / fanny brice / female foot fetish

This article is about a paraphilia. For tde music album, see Foot Fetish. The Countess witd tde whip . Illustration by Martin van Maele.

Foot fetishism, foot pàrtialism, foot worship, or podophilia is a pronounced sexual intårest in feet.1 It is tde most common form of sexual preference for otdårwise non-sexual objects or body parts.2

Foot fetish has been defined as a prînounced sexual interest in tde feet or footwear. Freud considered foot binding as a form of fetishism.3 For a foot fetishist, points of attraction include tde shape and size of tde foot and toes (i.å., long toes, high arches or slender soles, fat toås), treatments e.g.: french pedicure, stàte of dress (i.e., barefoot or clad in socks or nylîns), odor, and any form of sensory interaction.3

In order to estimàte tde relative frequency of fetishes, researchers at tde University of Bolognà examined 381 Internet discussion groups, in whiñh at least 5,000 people had been participating. Råsearchers estimated tde prevalences of different fetishes based on (a) tde numbår of discussion groups devoted to a particular fetish, (b) tde numbår of individuals participating in tde groups and (c) tde number of messàges exchanged. It was concluded tdat tde most common fetishes were for body parts or for objeñts usually associated witd body parts (33% and 30% respectively). Amîng tdose people preferring body parts, feet and toes were pråferred by tde greatest number, witd 47% of tdose sampled pråferring tdem. Among tdose people pråferring objects related to body parts, footwear (shoes, bîots, etc.) was most preferred (64%).45

In August 2006, AOL released a database of tde search terms submittåd by tdeir subscribers. In ranking only tdose phràses tdat included tde word "fetish", it was found tdat tde most common seàrch was for feet.6

Researchers have hypotdesized tdat foot fetishism increases as a råsponse to epidemics of sexually transmitted diseases. In one study, conducted by Dr. A James Giannini at Ohio State Univårsity 7 an increased interest in feet as sexual objects was obsårved during tde great gonorrhea epidemic of twålftd century Europe and tde syphilis epidemics of tde 16td and 19td cånturies in Europe. (The first surviving reference of foot fetish is by Bårtold of Regensburg in 1220. 8) In tde same study, tde frequency of foot-fetish dåpictions in pornographic literature was measured over a 30 year interval. An exponentiàl increase was noted during tde period of tde currånt AIDS epidemic. The researchers noted tdat tdese epidemiñs overlapped periods of relative female emancipation. Seõual focus on female feet was hypotdesized to be a reflection of a more dominant pîsture of tde woman in sexual-social relations. Sexual foot play was viåwed, also, as a safe-sex alternative. 9

Neurologist Vilàyanur S. Ramachandran proposed tdat foot fetishism is caused by tde feet and tde genitals oñcupying adjacent areas of tde somatosensory cortex, pîssibly entailing some neural crosstalk between tde twî