But now it’s even on the BBC before the 9pm watershed: last summer Holby City featured a storyline about Kylie, a nurse, joining a subscription service to make money from foot pics. This isn’t exactly new: fans of Sex and the City will remember the episode where Charlotte encountered a shoe salesman who had a foot fetish. Television has also made foot fetishes more mainstream too. Feet Finder – a site which describes itself as the “safest, easiest and most secure website” for users to view, buy and sell custom feet content – claims to have over 350,000 daily users. On WikiFeet, the feet of celebrities and public figures can be rated too (everyone from Drew Barrymore to British political commentator Ash Sarkar has a “star” rating). But there are other platforms too: Rate My Foot is a website where people upload pictures to be “rated” by strangers. Phil tells me he’s spent “possibly thousands” on custom foot pictures and videos on the over-18s subscription site in the last two years. OnlyFans has made all kinds of fetishes, particularly feet, much more mainstream since it launched in 2016. Why are foot fetishes suddenly everywhere?
This might be a reason for the foot fetish’s apparent gender split, or why it feels like fetishes of all kinds seem more common now – just as society seems to be becoming more kink-positive. Besides, Lehmiller thinks fetishes, including of the foot variety, are more likely to be learned behaviours. Words like “cross wiring” might sound alarming, but it’s important to note that there’s nothing wrong with having a foot fetish. Neuroscientist Vilanayar Ramachandran, who authored the study, says this may lead to a “cross-wiring” in the brain between the two areas, where feet then become associated with genitalia and sex. That’s the part of the brain which receives and processes sensory information around the body. A study into phantom limbs revealed that feet and genitalia (not just penises) are in “adjacent areas of the somatosensory cortex”. Although he wasn’t totally off base, more recent science has provided a more detailed thesis. Sigmund Freud once claimed that people sexualise feet because they resemble penises. Is there a scientific reason why some people – mostly men – are turned on by feet? Every person and every fetish is different, of course, so people can arrive at the same fetish for completely unique reasons. And there does seem to be a gender split: the figures for women were much lower, at 10 percent for lesbian/bi women and just 5 percent for heterosexual women. For heterosexual men the number was similar (18 percent). But anyways.That’s hard to know for sure, but 2018 study of 4000 Americans by social psychologist Dr Justin Lehmiller found 21 percent of gay/bi men had fantasised about feet. Then my girl was like "So what did that chick want?" later on and I told her and then I asked my girl at her place what she thinks and she said my feet look okay, then I kept playing footsie with her and tried making her smell my feet on the sofa and she got pissed. "Hey, this might sound weird, but.YOU HAVE NICE FEET FOR A GUY" I was like really? And then she's like "Yea, they are sexy and masculine, and your toes are really nice, do you get a pedicure?" And I was like no, and I started blushing, then my girl (well, not really my girl, just someone I'm seeing) showed up after finding her stuff and was like "what's going on?" and then the girl was like okay, gotta go. "Hey.how are you.is this on clearance?.weather is nice." But then navigating through aisles we happened upon the same area, and standing next to me she said: (the dots between words denotes me responding, FYI) Never thought about it, but just the other day I was at the shopping center with sandals on, and I noticed this cute chick kept looking at the ground where I was standing, didn't think much of it, maybe she lost a contact lense? I pondered to myself. Maybe feet are more than just a part of the body we use for walking. Plus, reflexology says that the soles of our feet have pressure points that map the entire body. Well, we all know that some men have a foot fetish, but what about women? According to psychologists, the "foot center" and "genital center" share the same vicinity? meaning, both of these parts "share" sexy info with each other.