Foot fetishism
Foot fetishism or podophilia is a pronounced sexual interest in
feet.
Encyclopedia
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 . Therefore, a person who can derive sexual arousal from the human foot along with other more conventional stimuli would not necessarily meet the clinical definition of having a
fetish. This article focuses on arousal by feet in general , 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 , state of dress 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 , 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 .
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 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 FetishismNeurologist
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
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