Foot fetishism

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

Foot fetishism, foot partialism, foot worship, or podophilia is a pronounced sexual interest in foot, or in some cases a disorder of sexual preference. It is the most common form of sexual preference for otherwise non-sexual objects or body parts

1 Characteristics
2 Research
- 2.1 Relative frequency
- 2.2 Relationships to health and disease
3 Foot fetish Websites

[edit] Characteristics

Foot fetish has been defined as a pronounced sexual interest in the lower limb or anything that covers portions of them. Freud considered foot binding as a form of fetishism For a foot fetishist, points of attraction include the shape and size of the foot and toes, treatments eg: french pedicure, state of dress (i.e., barefoot or clad in socks or pantyhose), odor, and any form of sensory interaction

Aretifism, a sexual attraction to people who are without footwear, rather than a fetish (or partialism) for feet.

[edit] Research

[edit] Relative frequency

In order to estimate the relative frequency of fetishes in a large sample of (at least 5000) individuals, researchers at the University of Bologna examined 381 discussion groups on the Internet. The prevalences shown for different fetishes were estimated based on (a) the number of groups devoted to the category, (b) the number of individuals participating in the groups and (c) the number of messages exchanged. The results from the survey concluded that the sexual preferences for body parts or features, and for objects usually associated with the body were most common (33% and 30% respectively). The "most common target of preferences" for the body parts were feet and toes at 47%. For objects usually associated with the body; shoes, boots and other footwear were recorded at 64% of the subsequent 30%In August 2006, the ISP 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.

[edit] Relationships to health and disease

Researchers have hypothesized that foot fetishism increases as a response to epidemics of sexually transmitted diseases. In one study, the increased interest in feet as sexual objects was observed during the syphilis epidemics of the 16th and 19th centuries in Europe In another 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.