Dear Lady Love,
I’ve never really been open about my fetishes with anyone except my ex-husband. It’s almost too embarrassing to talk about with any of my friends, family or coworkers, but I feel like it would be nice to get some perspective, or some encouragement like, “Hey what you’re doing is completely normal.” Being rather newly single, I feel like opening up and sharing my sexual passions with someone new could be risky.
For a long time now, I’ve had a thing for feet. Not just my own feet, but men and women’s toes and ankles. They excite me immensely. Sometimes I can’t even get aroused unless I can lick or caress my lover’s feet. Other times, it could be a little less erotic like a foot rub. Am I weird? From the looks of it, it seems this is an exclusively male thing. It’s like a stigmatized fetish.
What do I do?
Feeling Strange, Needing Answers
Dear Needing Answers,
While foot fetishism is commonly known as a male interest, you are not alone as a woman. Believe it or not, academic studies on the prevalence and membership of fetish discussion groups have found that feet and foot accessories are the most fetishized body part out there. Foot fetishists are intrigued by anything relating to the feet: long or short toes, a high arch, high heels, the simplicity of a bare foot, nail polish, how they smell, the softness of the skin, hair or no hair.
But it’s understandable why you would feel your desires might be on the deviant spectrum of normal, especially when you consider the social implications of having a foot fetish. Too often fetishes are considered freaky. I’ll have you know that contrary to popular belief, foot fetishists are not all perverts, sexual deviants, or anything to be afraid of or called “weird” for that matter.
There may not be an obvious reason why people are sexually drawn to feet, but there are several scientific theories floating around, including one from Vilanayar Ramachandran, neuroscientist and director of the Center for Brain and Cognition at the University of California, San Diego. While studying the brain malfunctions that lead to phantom limb syndrome, a condition where amputees feel as if their missing limbs are still attached to their bodies, he discovered that the syndrome resulted when a person’s “body image map” the brain’s map of the body, failed to erase the part of the map that corresponded to the amputated limb. In some cases, the map was rewired completely.
Patients reported feeling sexual pleasure, and even orgasms, in their missing feet. It’s important to note that the brain areas associated with genitalia and feet are adjacent to each other in the brain’s body image map. Foot fetishes could possibly result from this cross-wiring in the brain between the foot and the genital parts.
“Maybe even many of us so-called normal people have a bit of cross-wiring, which would explain why we like to have our toes sucked,” Ramachandran wrote in “Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind.”
Sigmund Freud claimed that people sexualize feet because they resemble penises. Either way, sex therapists say the sexual fixation may, in fact, be healthy for you!
The essentially risk-free nature of your foot eroticism can even be enjoyed without scaring off a potential partner.
“Foot partialism, or a foot fetish, is actually the most common form of fetish,” said Ian Kerner, a sex therapist and the founder of the website GoodinBed.com. “It’s only defined as a problem when the person or couple define it as a problem.”
It’s possible to satisfy your needs while making love, without seeming obsessed. If you want to try and incorporate your attraction into lovemaking without making your partner uncomfortable, one way to ease into things would be to include foot massages into the foreplay, or perhaps the two of you can try having sex with shoes on. Just be careful if you choose to leave on the stilettos, as those things can get a little dangerous when rolling around.
The reason for taking things slow is that revealing too much too soon in a relationship can sometimes turn people off, especially if they think you care more about a specific part of their body instead of who they are. On the other hand, for couples that are in it for the long run, talking about preferences and revealing things they feel embarrassed about can bring them closer.
I encourage couples to discover all the different ways to express their excitement to one another and explore their bodies and their experiences. As long as they are doing it together then that’s a very positive sign.
I can say from experience that you’re honestly more likely to date someone who has some sort of interest in feet than you might think. When you boil it down, here’s the thing about our sexual preferences: We just learn to accept them. Plain and simple.
“We do think of people with fetishes as someone who can’t function sexually in a normal way or an average way but the more you read about it the more you find out that everyone or almost everyone has certain predispositions of proclivities and desires to help them get aroused and get them sexually excited,” said Kerner. “In some cases it’s a particular fantasy or a position and a technique and in other cases it’s a body part or a costume.”
But if you find it difficult to connect with someone on a deeper level and your fetish begins to prevent you from having a relationship, you may want to consult a professional therapist for further assistance.
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