A fetish is a form of sexual desire that strongly focuses on an object, item of clothing or body part that is considered by society to be atypical in its eroticism. There are almost as many fetishes out there as there are nouns in the dictionary. The proper term for a fetish is a 'paraphilia', and while some are considered by society to be normal (gymnophilia - a sexual fixation on the naked body; no! get outta here!), within normal limits (altocalciphilia - a sexual fixation on high heels and the wearing of), repulsive (necrophilia – a sexual fixation on the dead), or just plain wrong (paedophilia – a sexual fixation on prepubescent children), there are also many, many more that are, quite frankly, bizarre (antholagnia: a sexual fixation on the smell of flowers; suddenly going to the garden centre at the weekend has taken on a whole new angle...)
For some reason one of the most commonly ridiculed of the paraphilias is that of podophilia: a sexual fixation with the foot. Foot fetishism is extremely common; enough that one could argue that it should be considered a sexual norm rather than a paraphilia. Feet are a part of the human body; it's not really any different from someone obsessing over a person's breasts or arse cheeks. One of my friends has an obsession with men's forearms. Don't follow it myself, but then I don't question it either. Possibly the reason that it's considered to be such an amusing fetish is because of people's experience of feet: sweaty, smelly, verruca and corn encrusted, dirt caked, fungus-infested feet. Mmm. How could you resist?
Well, some people can't. Foot fetishism is an extremely varied preoccupation: some people just go doolally over the sight of a bare foot; for others it's the sight of a foot in stockings and high heels; still others find that licking or sucking a foot is the turn on; and the foot equivalent of a hand job makes certain people swoon with desire. There are probably as many fetish variants as there are fetishists; a (very small) survey completed by alt.sex.fetish.foot found that the three commonest forms of podophilia are foot licking, foot worship and foot tickling. One of variant that amuses me is the concept of 'toe cleavage', a term used to describe the small amount of toe space seen poking out from what is, for want of a better term, the top of a low-cut shoe. Looks like I've spent the majority of my life flaunting the wrong bit of cleavage. This does lead me to ponder what the foot equivalent of a Wonderbra is.
Neuropsychology of podophilia
So, how would someone go about forming a tendency to hang out at Clarks on their days off? Well, the theoretical psychology of fetish formation is complicated, interesting, and far too long for me to write up here. Suffice to say that there are a lot of interplaying factors that lead to someone focusing their sexual (in)discretions on an object / item / body part. Freud postulated that podophilia was a result of the foot's passing resemblance to a phallus. Freud was also a cokehead who had unresolved issues with regards to his mother. Of course, some do make the comparison between the curves of a foot and the curves of a woman's body, so who knows, there may be something in it.
A psychiatry lecture that I attended on the subject of gender and sexuality suggested that some fetishes are the result of the Pavlovian theory of classical conditioning (with maybe a dash of reinforcement behaviour thrown in for good measure). If you were exposed over time to an object whilst independently experiencing a sexual response, then in the same way a dog salivates at the sound of a bell, you'd become turned on by that object, despite the absence of the original sexual stimulation. The lecturer summed it up with this (paraphrased) closer: "A fetish can be formed about practically anything. Take, for instance, this overhead projector. If you were to think about this overhead projector while you were being sexually aroused, eventually there would come a time where you'd become aroused simply by thinking about the overhead projector." All I know is that I've never looked at overhead projectors in quite the same light since. Still, lectures are now a hell of a lot more enjoyable, I'll tell you that much.
The renowned neuroscientist Vilayanur S. Ramachandran, an expert on phantom limbs, has also postulated an anatomical theory as to why some find the foot to be a source of carnal desire. He was first alerted to this idea when he received a telephone call from a young lady who'd lost her lower left leg in a farming accident. She had contacted him after reading a clinical paper he'd published on a young gentleman, Tom, who'd been experiencing phantom limb pain after a car accident that'd resulted in the loss of his left forearm. The paper documented the phenomenon of sensory remapping in the brain; if Tom's left cheek was stroked, he simultaneously experienced the sensation on both his left cheek AND in his missing left hand. Sound far-fetched? Not at all. To understand this seemingly improbable occurrence, you need to know the basics of how your brain processes sensory information.
The sensory homunculus
I know the whole basis of E2 is to be an stand-alone information source, but your understanding of what I'm trying to explain will be greatly facilitated if you open up another browser window and do a Google image search for "sensory homunculus". For the purists amongst you, I shall do my best to explain with words. Your brain uses neural maps to both send and receive information, and there is a specialised strip of cortex in you parietal lobe called the primary somatosensory cortex (SI) that is the processing gateway for sensory information gathered by the nerves in you limbs. Many years ago this strip was mapped out by a Canadian neurosurgeon, Wilder Penfield, using an electrode and any willing patient who'd needed to have their skull cracked open ("so, while I'm in there..."). When he stimulated the narrow strip of cortex posterior to the central sulcus, the patients (yes, they were awake despite their cranium being open) would describe tingling sensations in various parts of their body. From this he was able to draw a broadly human shapped representation (homunculus from the Latin diminutive of homo, man, to mean literally 'little man') that represented, proportionally, the amount of SI brain space dedicated to process input from various regions of the body over the strip of brain that he had isolated. Albeit a little human with massive lips and hands. Those who have weakened and Google image searched can see what I mean; those holding resolute to their purist E2 standpoint will be forever in the dark I'm afraid. In this sensory map, the portion of brain that receives input from the hand is situated next to the portion of brain that receives input from the cheek. Can you see where I'm going with this yet?
When someone loses a limb, the portion of that brain dedicated to that limb will no longer receive any input. The brain has a waste not, want not attitude, and so neurones from areas on either side of the now redundant 'hand area' of the Penfield map infiltrate and remap the area, in a process known as 'neural plasticity'. On examination, Tom had a sensory map of his amputated left hand on both his left cheek and his left shoulder; the two SI map areas on either side of the SI map of the hand. So, whenever sensory neurones in his cheek / upper arm were stimulated, he felt the sensation in his missing hand at the same time as in his cheek / upper arm.
Okay, so back to the girl with the blasé attitude toward farming machinery. She had read Dr. Ramachandran's paper explaining this concept of neural plasticity with regard to the sensory homunculus, and thought that he might be interested by a few observations that she'd made about her own phantom limb. She was a student of neurology, and his paper (along with its diagram of Penfield's homunculus) had served to explain something that had been confusing her for a while: whenever she was sexually aroused, she would feel the sensation in her phantom leg as well as her genitals. Examining Penfield's map, she'd noticed that the area of cortex that processes sensory information for the genitals is located next to the area that processes information from the foot. So, in her case, neurones from the genital area of SI had infiltrated into the now redundant foot area; as a consequence, whenever her genitals were stimulated, she experienced the sensation in both her phantom leg and her genitals. Dr Ramachdran got in contact with others who'd had legs amputated, and heard the same thing; when they had an orgasm, they experienced it in both their phantom and their genitals. Now, I'm the sort of person that has no concept of the notions of tact or boundaries, and I made a point for a while of asking patients with leg amputations if they'd had similar experiences; all of them had.
And, having taken the long way to get here, we arrive back at Dr. Ramachandran's theory for a possible cause of some foot fetishes. Because the sensory input area for the foot is next door to the input area for the genitals, it's possible that there is for some (or maybe all) of us a small amount of cross-wiring between the two areas that results in stimulation of the foot being sexually gratifying.
As an interesting side note (yes, I'll shut up in a minute), women who've had mastectomies experience phantom nipples in their earlobes. This may explain why people enjoy having their ears nibbled on as part of sexual play. Oh, and guess where the nipples and earlobes are mapped on Penfield's homunculus...
...right next to each other of course.
References
- alt.sex.fetish.feet FAQ: http://www.sexuality.org/l/fetish/asffeet.html
- Ramachandran VS, 1993, "Behavioural and MEG correlates of neural plasticity in the adult human brain", Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci USA; 90:10413-10420
- Ramachandran VS, 1999, "Phantoms in the Brain", 1st edition, Fourth Estate, 26-37