II.

Foot-fetichism and Shoe-fetichism--Wide Prevalence and Normal

Basis--Restif de la Bretonne--The Foot a Normal Focus of Sexual Attraction

Among Some Peoples--The Chinese, Greeks, Romans, Spaniards, etc.--The

Congenital Predisposition in Erotic Symbolism--The Influence of Early

Association and Emotional Shock--Shoe-fetichism in Relation to

Masochism--The Two Phenomena Independent Though Allied--The Desire to be

Trodden On--The Fascination of Physical Constraint--The Symbolism of

Self-inflicted Pain--The Dynamic Element in Erotic Symbolism--The

Symbolism of Garments.

Of all forms of erotic symbolism the most frequent is that which idealizes

the foot and the shoe. The phenomena we here encounter are sometimes so

complex and raise so many interesting questions that it is necessary to

discuss them somewhat fully.

It would seem that even for the normal lover the foot is one of the most

attractive parts of the body. Stanley Hall found that among the parts

specified as most admired in the other sex by young men and women who

answered a _questionnaire_ the feet came fourth (after the eyes, hair,

stature and size).[13] Casanova, an acute student and lover of women who

was in no degree a foot fetichist, remarks that all men who share his

interest in women are attracted by their feet; they offer the same

interest, he considers, as the question of the particular edition offers

to the book-lover.[14]

In a report of the results of a _questionnaire_ concerning

children's sense of self, to which over 500 replies were

received, Stanley Hall thus summarizes the main facts ascertained

with reference to the feet: "A special period of noticing the

feet comes somewhat later than that in which the hands are

discovered to consciousness. Our records afford nearly twice as

many cases for feet as for hands. The former are more remote from

the primary psychic focus or position, and are also more often

covered, so that the sight of them is a more marked and

exceptional event. Some children become greatly excited whenever

their feet are exposed. Some infants show signs of fear at the

movement of their own knees and feet covered, and still more

often fright is the first sensation which signalizes the child's

discovery of its feet.... Many are described as playing with them

as if fascinated by strange, newly-discovered toys. They pick

them up and try to throw them away, or out of the cradle, or

bring them to the mouth, where all things tend to go.... Children

often handle their feet, pat and stroke them, offer them toys and

the bottle, as if they, too, had an independent hunger to

gratify, an _ego_ of their own.... Children often develop [later]

a special interest in the feet of others, and examine, feel them,

etc., sometimes expressing surprise that the pinch of the

mother's toe hurts her and not the child, or comparing their own

and the feet of others point by point. Curious, too, are the

intensifications of foot-consciousness throughout the early years

of childhood, whenever children have the exceptional privilege of

going barefoot, or have new shoes. The feet are often

apostrophized, punished, beaten sometimes to the point of pain

for breaking things, throwing the child down, etc. Several

children have habits, which reach great intensity, and then

vanish, of touching or tickling the feet, with gales of laughter,

and a few are described as showing an almost morbid reluctance to

wear anything upon the feet, or even to having them touched by

others.... Several almost fall in love with the great toe or the

little one, especially admiring some crease or dimple in it,

dressing it in some rag of silk or bit of ribbon, or cut-off

glove fingers, winding it with string, prolonging it by tying on

bits of wood. Stroking the feet of others, especially if they are

shapely, often becomes almost a passion with young children, and

several adults confess a survival of the same impulse which it is

an exquisite pleasure to gratify. The interest of some mothers in

babies' toes, the expressions of which are ecstatic and almost

incredible, is a factor of great importance." (G. Stanley Hall,

"Some Aspects of the Early Sense of Self," _American Journal of

Psychology_, April, 1898.) In childhood, Stanley Hall remarks

elsewhere (_Adolescence_, vol. ii, p. 104), "a form of courtship

may consist solely in touching feet under the desk." It would

seem that even animals have a certain amount of sexual

consciousness in the feet; I have noticed a male donkey, just

before coitus, bite the feet of his partner.

At the same time it is scarcely usual for the normal lover, in most

civilized countries to-day, to attach primary importance to the foot, such

as he very frequently attaches to the eyes, though the feet play a very

conspicuous part in the work of certain novelists.[15]

In a small but not inconsiderable minority of persons, however, the foot

or the boot becomes the most attractive part of a woman, and in some

morbid cases the woman herself is regarded as a comparatively unimportant

appendage to her feet or her boots. The boots under civilized conditions

much more frequently constitute the sexual symbol than do the feet

themselves; this is not surprising since in ordinary life the feet are not

often seen.

It is usually only under exceptionally favoring conditions that

foot-fetichism occurs, as in the case recorded by Marandon de

Montyel of a doctor who had been brought up in the West Indies.

His mother had been insane and he himself was subject to

obsessions, especially of being incapable of urinating; he had

had nocturnal incontinence of urine in childhood. All the women

of the people in the West Indies go about with naked feet, which

are often beautiful. His puberty evolved under this influence,

and foot-fetichism developed. He especially admired large, fat,

arched feet, with delicate skin and large, regular toes. He

masturbated with images of feet. At 15 he had relations with a

colored chambermaid, but feared to mention his fetichism, though

it was the touch of her feet that chiefly excited him. He now

gave up masturbation, and had a succession of mistresses, but was

always ashamed to confess his fancies until, at the age of 33, in

Paris, a very intelligent woman who had become his mistress

discovered his mania and skillfully enabled him to yield to it

without shock to his modesty. He was devoted to this mistress,

who had very beautiful feet (he had been horrified by the feet of

Europeans generally), until she finally left him. (_Archives de

Neurologie_, October, 1904.)

Probably the first case of shoe-fetichism ever recorded in any

detail is that of Restif de la Bretonne (1734-1806), publicist

and novelist, one of the most remarkable literary figures of the

later eighteenth century in France. Restif was a neurotic

subject, though not to an extreme degree, and his shoe-fetichism,

though distinctly pronounced, was not pathological; that is to

say, that the shoe was not itself an adequate gratification of

the sexual impulse, but simply a highly important aid to

tumescence, a prelude to the natural climax of detumescence; only

occasionally, and _faute de mieux_, in the absence of the beloved

person, was the shoe used as an adjunct to masturbation. In

Restif's stories and elsewhere the attraction of the shoe is

frequently discussed or used as a motive. His first decided

literary success, _Le Pied de Fanchette_, was suggested by a

vision of a girl with a charming foot, casually seen in the

street. While all such passages in his books are really founded

on his own personal feelings and experiences, in his elaborate

autobiography, _Monsieur Nicolas_, he has frankly set forth the

gradual evolution and cause of his idiosyncrasy. The first

remembered trace dated from the age of 4, when he was able to

recall having remarked the feet of a young girl in his native

place. Restif was a sexually precocious youth, and at the age of

9, though both delicate in health and shy in manners, his

thoughts were already absorbed in the girls around him. "While

little Monsieur Nicolas," he tells us, "passed for a Narcissus,

his thoughts, as soon as he was alone, by night or by day, had no

other object than that sex he seemed to flee from. The girls most

careful of their persons were naturally those who pleased him

most, and as the part least easy to keep clean is that which

touches the earth it was to the foot-gear that he mechanically

gave his chief attention. Agathe, Reine, and especially

Madeleine, were the most elegant of the girls at that time; their

carefully selected and kept shoes, instead of laces or buckles,

which were not yet worn at Sacy, had blue or rose ribbon,

according to the color of the skirt. I thought of these girls

with emotion; I desired--I knew not what; but I desired

something, if it were only to subdue them." The origin Restif

here assigns to his shoe-fetichism may seem paradoxical; he

admired the girls who were most clean and neat in their dress, he

tells us, and, therefore, paid most attention to that part of

their clothing which was least clean and neat. But, however

paradoxical the remark may seem, it is psychologically sound. All

fetichism is a kind of not necessarily morbid obsession, and as

the careful work of Janet and others in that field has shown, an

obsession is a fascinated attraction to some object or idea

which gives the subject a kind of emotional shock by its

contrast to his habitual moods or ideas. The ordinary morbid

obsession cannot usually be harmoniously co-ordinated with the

other experiences of the subject's daily life, and shows,

therefore, no tendency to become pleasurable. Sexual fetichisms,

on the other hand, have a reservoir of agreeable emotion to draw

on, and are thus able to acquire both stability and harmony. It

will also be seen that no element of masochism is involved in

Restif's fetichism, though the mistake has been frequently made

of supposing that these two manifestations are usually or even

necessarily allied. Restif wishes to subject the girl who

attracts him, he has no wish to be subjected by her. He was

especially dazzled by a young girl from another town, whose shoes

were of a fashionable cut, with buckles, "and who was a charming

person besides." She was delicate as a fairy, and rendered his

thoughts unfaithful to the robust beauties of his native Sacy.

"No doubt," he remarks, "because, being frail and weak myself, it

seemed to me that it would be easier to subdue her." "This taste

for the beauty of the feet," he continues, "was so powerful in me

that it unfailingly aroused desire and would have made me

overlook ugliness. It is excessive in all those who have it." He

admired the foot as well as the shoe: "The factitious taste for

the shoe is only a reflection of that for pretty feet. When I

entered a house and saw the boots arranged in a row, as is the

custom, I would tremble with pleasure; I blushed and lowered my

eyes as if in the presence of the girls themselves. With this

vivacity of feeling and a voluptuousness of ideas inconceivable

at the age of 10 I still fled, with an involuntary impulse of

modesty, from the girls I adored."

We may clearly see how this combination of sensitive and

precocious sexual ardor with extreme shyness, furnished the soil

on which the germ of shoe-fetichism was able to gain a firm root

and persist in some degree throughout a long life very largely

given up to a pursuit of women, abnormal rather by its

excessiveness than its perversity. A few years later, he tells

us, he happened to see a pretty pair of shoes in a bootmaker's

shop, and on hearing that they belonged to a girl whom at that

time he reverently adored at a distance he blushed and nearly

fainted.

In 1749 he was for a time attracted to a young woman very much

older than himself; he secretly carried away one of her slippers

and kept it for a day; a little later he again took away a shoe

of the same woman which had fascinated him when on her foot, and,

he seems to imply, he used it to masturbate with.

Perhaps the chief passion of Restif's life was his love for

Colette Parangon. He was still a boy (1752), she was the young

and virtuous wife of the printer whose apprentice Restif was and

in whose house he lived. Madame Parangon, a charming woman, as

she is described, was not happily married, and she evidently

felt a tender affection for the boy whose excessive love and

reverence for her were not always successfully concealed.

"Madonna Parangon," he tells us, "possessed a charm which I could

never resist, a pretty little foot; it is a charm which arouses

more than tenderness. Her shoes, made in Paris, had that

voluptuous elegance which seems to communicate soul and life.

Sometimes Colette wore shoes of simple white drugget or with

silver flowers; sometimes rose-colored slippers with green heels,

or green with rose heels; her supple feet, far from deforming her

shoes, increased their grace and rendered the form more

exciting." One day, on entering the house, he saw Madame Parangon

elegantly dressed and wearing rose-colored shoes with tongues,

and with green heels and a pretty rosette. They were new and she

took them off to put on green slippers with rose heels and

borders which he thought equally exciting. As soon as she had

left the room, he continues, "carried away by the most impetuous

passion and idolizing Colette, I seemed to see her and touch her

in handling what she had just worn; my lips pressed one of these

jewels, while the other, deceiving the sacred end of nature, from

excess of exaltation replaced the object of sex (I cannot express

myself more clearly). The warmth which she had communicated to

the insensible object which had touched her still remained and

gave a soul to it; a voluptuous cloud covered my eyes." He adds

that he would kiss with rage and transport whatever had come in

close contact with the woman he adored, and on one occasion

eagerly pressed his lips to her cast-off underlinen, _vela

secretiora penetralium_.

At this period Restif's foot-fetichism reached its highest point

of development. It was the aberration of a highly sensitive and

very precocious boy. While the preoccupation with feet and shoes

persisted throughout life, it never became a complete perversion

and never replaced the normal end of sexual desire. His love for

Madam Parangon, one of the deepest emotions in his whole life,

was also the climax of his shoe-fetichism. She represented his

ideal woman, an ethereal sylph with wasp-waist and a child's

feet; it was always his highest praise for a woman that she

resembled Madame Parangon, and he desired that her slipper should

be buried with him. (Restif de la Bretonne, _Monsieur Nicolas_,

vols. i-iv, vol. xiii, p. 5; id., _Mes Inscriptions_, pp. ci-cv.)

Shoe-fetichism, more especially if we include under this term all

the cases of real or pseudo-masochism in which an attraction to

the boots or slippers is the chief feature, is a not infrequent

phenomenon, and is certainly the most frequently occurring form

of fetichism. Many cases are brought together by Krafft-Ebing in

his _Psychopathia Sexualis_. Every prostitute of any experience

has known men who merely desire to gaze at her shoes, or possibly

to lick them, and who are quite willing to pay for this

privilege. In London such a person is known as a "bootman," in

Germany as a "Stiefelfrier."

The predominance of the foot as a focus of sexual attraction, while among

us to-day it is a not uncommon phenomenon, is still not sufficiently

common to be called normal; the majority of even ardent lovers do not

experience this attraction in any marked degree. But these manifestations

of foot-fetichism which with us to-day are abnormal, even when they are

not so extreme as to be morbid, may perhaps become more intelligible to us

when we realize that in earlier periods of civilization, and even to-day

in some parts of the world, the foot is generally recognized as a focus of

sexual attraction, so that some degree of foot-fetichism becomes a normal

phenomenon.

The most pronounced and the best known example of such normal

foot-fetichism at the present day is certainly to be found among the

Southern Chinese. For a Chinese husband his wife's foot is more

interesting than her face. A Chinese woman is as shy of showing her feet

to a man as a European woman her breasts; they are reserved for her

husband's eyes alone, and to look at a woman's feet in the street is

highly improper and indelicate. Chinese foot-fetichism is connected with

the custom of compressing the feet. This custom appears to rest on the

fact that Chinese women naturally possess a very small foot and is thus an

example of the universal tendency in the search for beauty to accentuate,

even by deformation, the racial characteristics. But there is more than

this. Beauty is largely a name for sexual attractiveness, and the energy

expended in the effort to make the Chinese woman's small foot still

smaller is a measure of the sexual fascination which it exerts. The

practice arose on the basis of the sexual attractiveness of the foot,

though it has doubtless served to heighten that attractiveness, just as

the small waist, which (if we may follow Stratz) is a characteristic

beauty of the European woman, becomes to the average European man still

more attractive when accentuated, even to the extent of deformity, by the

compression of the corset.

Referring to the sexual fascination exerted by the foot in China,

Matignon writes: "My attention has been drawn to this point by a

large number of pornographic engravings, of which the Chinese are

very fond. In all these lascivious scenes we see the male

voluptuously fondling the woman's foot. When a Celestial takes

into his hand a woman's foot, especially if it is very small, the

effect upon him is precisely the same as is provoked in a

European by the palpation of a young and firm bosom. All the

Celestials whom I have interrogated on this point have replied

unanimously: 'Oh, a little foot! You Europeans cannot understand

how exquisite, how sweet, how exciting it is!' The contact of the

genital organ with the little foot produces in the male an

indescribable degree of voluptuous feeling, and women skilled in

love know that to arouse the ardor of their lovers a better

method than all Chinese aphrodisiacs--including 'giusen' and

swallows' nests--is to take the penis between their feet. It is

not rare to find Chinese Christians accusing themselves at

confession of having had 'evil thoughts on looking at a woman's

foot.'" (Dr. J. Matignon, "A propos d'un Pied de Chinoise,"

_Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, 1898.)

It is said that a Chinese Empress, noted for her vice and having

a congenital club foot, about the year 1100 B.C., desired all

women to resemble her, and that the practice of compressing the

foot thus arose. But this is only tradition, since, in 300 B.C.,

Chinese books were destroyed (Morache, Art. "Chine,"

_Dictionnaire Encyclopédique des Sciences Médicales_, p. 191). It

is also said that the practice owes its origin to the wish to

keep women indoors. But women are not secluded in China, nor does

foot compression usually render a woman unable to walk. Many

intelligent Chinese are of opinion that its object is to promote

the development of the sexual parts and of the thighs, and so to

aid both intercourse and parturition. There is no ground for

believing that it has any such influence, though Morache found

that the mons veneris and labia are largely developed in Chinese

women, and not in Tartar women living in Pekin (who do not

compress the foot). If there is any correlation between the feet

and the pelvic regions, it is more probably congenital than due

to the artificial compression of the feet. The ancients seem to

have believed that a small foot indicated a small vagina. Restif

de la Bretonne, who had ample opportunities for forming an

opinion on a matter in which he took so great an interest,

believed that a small foot, round and short, indicated a large

vagina (_Monsieur Nicolas_, vol. i, reprint of 1883, p. 92).

Even, however, if we admit that there is a real correlation

between the foot and the vagina, that would by no means suffice

to render the foot a focus of sexual attraction.

It remains the most reasonable view that the foot bandage must be

regarded as strictly analogous to the waist bandage or corset

which also tends to produce deformity of the constricted region.

Stratz has ingeniously remarked (_Frauenkleidung_, third edition,

p. 101) that the success of the Chinese in dwarfing trees may

have suggested a similar attempt in regard to women's feet, and

adds that in any case both dwarfed trees and bound feet bear

witness in the Mongolian to the same love for small and elegant,

not to say deformed, things. For a Chinaman the deformed foot is

a "golden water-lily."

Many facts (together with illustrations) bearing on Chinese

deformation of the foot will be found in Ploss, _Das Weib_, vol.

i, Section IV.

The significance of the sexual emotion aroused by the female foot in China

and the origin of its compression begin to become clear when we realize

that this foot-fetichism is merely an extreme development of a tendency

which is fairly well marked among nearly all the peoples of yellow race.

Jacoby, who has brought together a number of interesting facts bearing on

the sexual significance of the foot, states that a similar tendency is to

be found among the Mongol and Turk peoples of Siberia, and in the east and

central parts of European Russia, among the Permiaks, the Wotiaks, etc.

Here the woman, at all events when young, has always her feet, as well as

head, covered, however little clothing she may otherwise wear.

"On hot nights or on baking days," Jacoby states, "you may see

these women with uncovered breasts, or even entirely naked

without embarrassment, but you will never see them with bare

feet, and no male relations, except the husband, will ever see

the feet and lower part of the legs of the women in the house.

These women have their modesty in their feet, and also their

coquetry; to unbind the feet of a woman is for a man a voluptuous

act, and the touch of the bands produces the same effect as a

corset still warm from a woman's body on a European man. A

woman's beauty, that which attracts and excites a man, lies in

her foot; in Mordvin love poems celebrating the beauty of women

there is much about her attire, especially her embroidered

chemise, but as regards the charms of her person the poet is

content to state that 'her feet are beautiful;' with that

everything is said. The young peasant woman of the central

provinces as part of her holiday raiment puts on great woolen

stockings which come up to the groin and are then folded over to

below the knee. To uncover the feet of a person of the opposite

sex is a sexual act, and has thus become the symbol of sexual

possession, so that the stocking or foot-gear became the emblem

of marriage, as later the ring. (It was so among the Jews, as we

see in the book of _Ruth_, Chapter III, v. 4, and Chapter IV, vv.

7 and 8). St. Vladimir the Great asked in marriage the daughter

of Prince Rogvold; as Vladimir's mother had been a serf, the

princess proudly replied that she 'would not uncover the feet of

a slave.' At the present time in the east of Russia when a young

girl tries to find out by divination whom she will have as a

husband the traditional formula is 'Come and take my stockings

off.' Among the populations of the north and east, it is

sometimes the bride who must do this for her husband on the

wedding night, and sometimes the bridegroom for his wife, not as

a token of love, but as a nuptial ceremony. Among the

professional classes and small nobility in Russia parents place

money in the stocking of their child at marriage as a present for

the other partner, it being supposed that the couple mutually

remove each other's foot raiment, as an act of sexual possession,

the emblem of coitus." (Paul Jacoby, _Archives d'Anthropologie

Criminelle_, December, 1903, p. 793.) The practice among

ourselves of children hanging up their stockings at night for

presents would seem to be a relic of the last-mentioned custom.

While we may witness the sexual symbolism of the foot, with or without an

associated foot-fetichism, most highly developed in Asia and Eastern

Europe, it has by no means been altogether unknown in some stages of

western civilization, and traces of it may be found here and there even

yet. Schinz refers to the connection between the feet and sexual pleasure

as existing not only among the Egyptians and the Arabs, but among the

ancient Germans and the modern Spaniards,[16] while Jacoby points out that

among the Greeks, the Romans, and especially the Etruscans, it was usual

to represent chaste and virgin goddesses with their feet covered, even

though they might be otherwise nude. Ovid, again, is never weary of

dwelling on the sexual charm of the feminine foot. He represents the

chaste matron as wearing a weighted _stola_ which always fell so as to

cover her feet; it was only the courtesan, or the nymph who is taking part

in an erotic festival, who appears with raised robes, revealing her

feet.[17] So grave a historian as Strabo, as well as Ælian, refers to the

story of the courtesan Rhodope whose sandal was carried off by an eagle

and dropped in the King of Egypt's lap as he was administering justice, so

that he could not rest until he had discovered to whom this delicately

small sandal belonged, and finally made her his queen. Kleinpaul, who

repeats this story, has collected many European sayings and customs

(including Turkish), indicating that the slipper is a very ancient symbol

of a woman's sexual parts.[18]

In Rome, Dufour remarks, "Matrons having appropriated the use of

the shoe (_soccus_) prostitutes were not allowed to use it, and

were obliged to have their feet always naked in sandals or

slippers (_crepida_ and _solea_), which they fastened over the

instep with gilt bands. Tibullus delights to describe his

mistress's little foot, compressed by the band that imprisoned

it: _Ansaque compressos colligat arcta pedes_. Nudity of the foot

in woman was a sign of prostitution, and their brilliant

whiteness acted afar as a pimp to attract looks and desires."

(Dufour, _Histoire de la Prostitution_, vol. II., ch. xviii.)

This feeling seems to have survived in a more or less vague and

unconscious form in mediæval Europe. "In the tenth century,"

according to Dufour (_Histoire de la Prostitution_, vol. VI., p.

11), "shoes _a la poulaine_, with a claw or beak, pursued for

more than four centuries by the anathemas of popes and the

invectives of preachers, were always regarded by mediæval

casuists as the most abominable emblems of immodesty. At a first

glance it is not easy to see why these shoes--terminating in a

lion's claw, an eagle's beak, the prow of a ship, or other metal

appendage--should be so scandalous. The excommunication inflicted

on this kind of foot-gear preceded the impudent invention of some

libertine, who wore _poulaines_ in the shape of the phallus, a

custom adopted also by women. This kind of _poulaine_ was

denounced as _mandite de Dicu_ (Ducange's Glossary, at the word

Poulainia) and prohibited by royal ordinances (see letter of

Charles V., 17 October, 1367, regarding the garments of the women

of Montpellier). Great lords and ladies continued, however, to

wear _poulaines_." In Louis XL's court they were still worn of a

quarter of an ell in length.

Spain, ever tenacious of ancient ideas, appears to have preserved

longer than other countries the ancient classic traditions in

regard to the foot as a focus of modesty and an object of sexual

attraction. In Spanish religious pictures it was always necessary

that the Virgin's feet should be concealed, the clergy ordaining

that her robe should be long and flowing, so that the feet might

be covered with decent folds. Pacheco, the master and

father-in-law of Velasquez, writes in 1649 in his _Arte de la

Pintura_: "What can be more foreign from the respect which we owe

to the purity of Our Lady the Virgin than to paint her sitting

down with one of her knees placed over the other, and often with

her sacred feet uncovered and naked. Let thanks be given to the

Holy Inquisition which commands that this liberty should be

corrected!" It was Pacheco's duty in Seville to see that these

commands were obeyed. At the court of Philip IV. at this time the

princesses never showed their feet, as we may see in the pictures

of Velasquez. When a local manufacturer desired to present that

monarch's second bride, Mariana of Austria, with some silk

stockings the offer was indignantly rejected by the Court

Chamberlain: "The Queen of Spain has no legs!" Philip V.'s, queen

was thrown from her horse and dragged by the feet; no one

ventured to interfere until two gentlemen bravely rescued her and

then fled, dreading punishment by the king: they were, however,

graciously pardoned. Reinach ("Pieds Pudiques," _Cultes, Mythes

et Religions_, pp. 105-110) brings together several passages from

the Countess D'Aulnoy's account of the Madrid Court in the

seventeenth century and from other sources, showing how careful

Spanish ladies were as regards their feet, and how jealous

Spanish husbands were in this matter. At this time, when Spanish

influence was considerable, the fashion of Spain seems to have

spread to other countries. One may note that in Vandyck's

pictures of English beauties the feet are not visible, though in

the more characteristically English painters of a somewhat later

age it became usual to display them conspicuously, while the

French custom in this matter is the farthest removed from the

Spanish. At the present day a well-bred Spanish woman shows as

little as possible of her feet in walking, and even in some of

the most characteristic Spanish dances there is little or no

kicking, and the feet may even be invisible throughout. It is

noteworthy that in numerous figures of Spanish women (probably

artists' models) reproduced in Ploss's _Das Weib_ the stockings

are worn, although the women are otherwise, in most cases, quite

naked. Max Dessoir mentions ("Psychologie der Vita Sexualis,"

_Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie_, 1894, p. 954) that in Spanish

pornographic photographs women always have their shoes on, and he

considers this an indication of perversity. I have seen the

statement (attributed to Gautier's _Voyage en Espagne_, where,

however, it does not occur) that Spanish prostitutes uncover

their feet in sign of assent, and Madame d'Aulnoy stated that in

her time to show her lover her feet was a Spanish woman's final

favor.

The tendency, which we thus find to be normal at some earlier periods of

civilization, to insist on the sexual symbolism of the feminine foot or

its coverings, and to regard them as a special sexual fascination, is not

without significance for the interpretation of the sporadic manifestations

of foot-fetichism among ourselves. Eccentric as foot-fetichism may appear

to us, it is simply the re-emergence, by a pseudo-atavism or arrest of

development, of a mental or emotional impulse which was probably

experienced by our forefathers, and is often traceable among young

children to-day.[19] The occasional reappearance of this bygone impulse

and the stability which it may acquire are thus conditioned by the

sensitive reaction of an abnormally nervous and usually precocious

organism to influences which, among the average and ordinary population of

Europe to-day, are either never felt, or quickly outgrown, or very

strictly subordinated in the highly complex crystallizations which the

course of love and the process of tumescence create within us.

It may be added that this is by no means true of foot-fetichism

only. In some other fetichisms a seemingly congenital

predisposition is even more marked. This is not only the case as

regards hair-fetichism and fur-fetichism (see, e.g.,

Krafft-Ebing, _Psychopathia Sexualis_, English translation of

tenth edition, pp. 233, 255, 262). In many cases of fetichisms of

all kinds not only is there no record of any commencement in a

definite episode (an absence which may be accounted for by the

supposition that the original incident has been forgotten), but

it would seem in some cases that the fetichism developed very

slowly.

In this sense, it will be seen, although it is hazardous to speak of

foot-fetichism as strictly an atavism, it may certainly be said to arise

on a congenital basis. It represents the rare development of an inborn

germ, usually latent among ourselves, which in earlier stages of

civilization frequently reached a normal and general fruition.

It is of interest to emphasize this congenital element of foot symbolism,

because more than any other forms of sexual perversion the fetichisms are

those which are most vaguely conditioned by inborn states of the organism

and most definitely aroused by seemingly accidental associations or shocks

in early life. Inversion is sometimes so fundamentally ingrained in the

individual's constitution that it arises and develops in spite of the very

strongest influence in a contrary direction. But a fetichism, while it

tends to occur in sensitive, nervous, timid, precocious individuals--that

is to say, individuals of more or less neuropathic heredity--can usually,

though not always, be traced to a definite starting point in the shock of

some sexually emotional episode in early life.

A few examples of the influences of such association may here be

given, referring miscellaneously to various forms of erotic

symbolism. Magnan has recorded the case of a hair-fetichist,

living in a district where the women wore their hair done up, who

at the age of 15 experienced pleasurable feelings with erection

at the sight of a village beauty combing her hair; from that time

flowing hair became his fetich, and he could not resist the

temptation to touch it and if possible sever it, thus becoming a

hair-despoiler, for which he was arrested but not sentenced.

(_Archives de l'Anthropologie Criminelle_, vol. v, No. 28.)

I have elsewhere recorded the history of a boy of 14, having

already had imperfect connection with a grown-up woman, who

associated much with a young married lady; he had no sexual

relations with her, but one day she urinated in his presence, and

he saw that her mons veneris was covered by very thick hair; from

that time he worshiped this woman in secret and acquired a

life-long fetichistic attraction to women whose pubic hair was

similarly abundant (_Studies in the Psychology of Sex_, vol. iii,

Appendix B, History V).

Roubaud reported the case of a general's son, sexually initiated

at the age of 14 by a blonde young lady of 21 who, in order to

avoid detection, always retained her clothing: gaiters, a corset

and a silk dress; when the boy's studies were completed and he

was sent to a garrison where he could enjoy freedom he found that

his sexual desires could only be aroused by blonde women dressed

like the lady who had first aroused his sexual desires;

consequently he gave up all thoughts of matrimony, as a woman in

nightclothes produced impotence (_Traité de l'Impuissance_, p.

439). Krafft-Ebing records the somewhat similar case of a nervous

Polish boy of old family seduced at the age of 17 by a French

governess, who during several months practiced mutual

masturbation with him; in this way his attention became

attracted by her very elegant boots, and in the end he became a

confirmed boot-fetichist (_Psychopathia Sexualis_, English

translation, p. 249).

A boy of 7, of bad heredity, was taught to masturbate by a

servant girl; on one occasion she practiced this on him with her

foot without taking off her shoe; it was the first time the

manoeuvre gave him any pleasure, and an association was thus

established which led to shoe-fetichism (Hammond, _Sexual

Impotence_, p. 44). A government official whose first coitus in

youth took place on a staircase; the sound of his partner's

creaking shoes against the stairs, produced by her efforts to

accelerate orgasm, formed an association which developed into an

auditory shoe-fetichism; in the streets he was compelled to

follow ladies whose shoes creaked, ejaculation being thus

produced, while to obtain complete satisfaction he would make a

prostitute, otherwise naked, sit in front of him in her shoes,

moving her feet so that the shoes creaked. (Moraglia, _Archivio

di Psichiatria_, vol. xiii, p. 568.)

Bechterew, in St. Petersburg, has recorded the case of a man who

when a child used to fall asleep at the knees of his nurse with

his head buried in the folds of her apron; in this position he

first experienced erection and voluptuous sensations; when a

youth he had no attraction to naked women, and in real life and

in dreams was only excited sexually under conditions recalling

his early experience; in his relations with women he preferred

them dressed, and was excited by the rustling sound of their

skirts; in this case there was no traceable neuropathic taint nor

any other personal peculiarity. (Summarized in _Journal de

Psychologie Normale et Pathologique_, January-February, 1904, p.

72.)

In a curious case recorded in detail by Moll, a philologist of

sensitive temperament but sound heredity, who had always been

fond of flowers, at the age of 21 became engaged to a young lady

who wore large roses fastened in her jacket; from this time roses

became to him a sexual fetich, to kiss them caused erection, and

his erotic dreams were accompanied by visions of roses and the

hallucination of their odor; the engagement was finally broken

off and the rose-fetichism disappeared (_Untersuchungen über

Libido Sexualis_, bd. i, p. 540).

Such associations may naturally occur in the early experiences of even the

most normal persons. The degree to which they will influence the

subsequent life and thought and feeling depends on the degree of the

individual's morbid emotional receptivity, on the extent to which he is

hereditarily susceptible of abnormal deviation. Precocity is undoubtedly a

condition which favors such deviation; a child who is precociously and

abnormally sensitive to persons of the opposite sex before puberty has

established the normal channels of sexual desire, is peculiarly liable to

become the prey of a chance symbolism. All degrees of such symbolism are

possible. While the average insensitive person may fail to perceive them

at all, for the more alert and imaginative lover they are a fascinating

part of the highly charged crystallization of passion. A more nervously

exceptional person, when once such a symbolism has become firmly

implanted, may find it an absolutely essential element in the charm of a

beloved and charming person. Finally, for the individual who is thoroughly

unsound the symbol becomes generalized; a person is no longer desired at

all, being merely regarded as an appendage of the symbol, or being

dispensed with altogether; the symbol is alone desired, and is fully

adequate to impart by itself complete sexual gratification. While it must

be considered a morbid state to demand a symbol as an almost essential

part of the charm of a desired person, it is only in the final condition,

in which the symbol becomes all-sufficing, that we have a true and

complete perversion. In the less complete forms of symbolism it is still

the woman who is desired, and the ends of procreation may be served; when

the woman is ignored and the mere symbol is an adequate and even preferred

stimulus to detumescence the pathological condition becomes complete.

Krafft-Ebing regarded shoe-fetichism as, in large measure, a more or less

latent form of masochism, the foot or the shoe being the symbol of the

subjection and humiliation which the masochist feels in the presence of

the beloved object. Moll is also inclined to accept such a connection.

"The very numerous class of boot-and-shoe-fetichists,"

Krafft-Ebing wrote, "forms the transition to the manifestations

of another independent perversion, i.e., fetichism itself; but it

stands in closer relationship to the former.... It is highly

probable, and shown by a correct classification of the observed

cases, that the majority, and perhaps all of the cases of

shoe-fetichism, rest upon a basis of more or less conscious

masochistic desire for self-humiliation.... The majority or all

may be looked upon as instances of latent masochism (the motive

remaining unconscious) in which the _female foot or shoe, as the

masochist's fetich_, has acquired an independent significance."

(_Psychopathia Sexualis_, English translation of tenth edition,

pp. 159, et seq.) "Though Krafft-Ebing may not have cleared up

the whole matter," Moll remarks, "I regard his deductions

concerning the connection of foot-and-shoe fetichism to masochism

as the most important progress that has been made in the

theoretic study of sexual perversions.... In any case, the

connection is very frequent." (_Konträre Sexualempfindung_, third

edition, p. 306.)

It is quite easy to see that this supposed identity of masochism and

foot-fetichism forms a seductive theory. It is also undoubtedly true that

a masochist may very easily be inclined to find in his mistress's foot an

aid to the ecstatic self-abnegation which he desires to attain.[20] But

only confusion is attained by any general attempt to amalgamate masochism

and foot-fetichism. In the broad sense in which erotic symbolism is here

understood, both masochism and foot-fetichism may be coördinated as

symbolisms; for the masochist his self-humiliating impulses are the symbol

of ecstatic adoration; for the foot-fetichist his mistress's foot or shoe

is the concentrated symbol of all that is most beautiful and elegant and

feminine in her personality. But if in this sense they are coördinated,

they remain entirely distinct and have not even any necessary tendency to

become merged. Masochism merely simulates foot-fetichism; for the

masochist the boot is not strictly a symbol, it is only an instrument

which enables him to carry out his impulse; the true sexual symbol for him

is not the boot, but the emotion of self-subjection. For the

foot-fetichist, on the other hand, the foot or the shoe is not a mere

instrument, but a true symbol; the focus of his worship, an idealized

object which he is content to contemplate or reverently touch. He has no

necessary impulse to any self-degrading action, nor any constant emotion

of subjection. It may be noted that in the very typical case of

foot-fetichism which is presented to us in the person of Restif de la

Bretonne (_ante_, p. 18), he repeatedly speaks of "subjecting" the woman

for whom he feels this fetichistic adoration, and mentions that even when

still a child he especially admired a delicate and fairy-like girl in this

respect because she seemed to him easier to subjugate. Throughout life

Restif's attitude toward women was active and masculine, without the

slightest trace of masochism.[21]

To suppose that a fetichistic admiration of his mistress's foot is due to

a lover's latent desire to be kicked, is as unreasonable as it would be to

suppose that a fetichistic admiration for her hand indicated a latent

desire to have his ears boxed. In determining whether we are concerned

with a case of foot-fetichism or of masochism we must take into

consideration the whole of the subject's mental and emotional attitude. An

act, however definite, will not suffice as a criterion, for the same act

in different persons may have altogether different implications. To

amalgamate the two is the result of inadequate psychological analysis and

only leads to confusion.

It is, however, often very difficult to decide whether we are dealing with

a case which is predominantly one of masochism or of foot-fetichism. The

nature of the action desired, as we have seen, will not suffice to

determine the psychological character of the perversion. Krafft-Ebing

believed that the desire to be trodden on, very frequently experienced by

masochists, is absolutely symptomatic of masochism.[22] This is scarcely

the case. The desire to be trodden on may be fundamentally an erotic

symbolism, closely approaching foot-fetichism, and such slight indications

of masochism as appear may be merely a parasitic growth on the symbolism,

a growth perhaps more suggested by the circumstances involved in the

gratification of the abnormal desire than inherent in the innate impulse

of the subject. This may be illustrated by the interesting case of a very

intelligent man with whom I am well acquainted.

C.P., aged 38. Heredity good. Parents both healthy and normal.

Several children of the marriage, all sexually normal so far as

is known. C.P. is the youngest of the family and separated from

the others by an interval of many years. He was a seven-months'

child. He has always enjoyed good health and is active and

vigorous, both mentally and physically.

From the age of 9 or 10 to 14 he masturbated occasionally for the

sake of physical relief, having discovered the act for himself.

He was, however, quite innocent and knew nothing of sexual

matters, never having been initiated either by servants or by

other boys.

"When I encounter a woman who very strongly attracts me and whom

I very greatly admire," he writes, "my desire is never that I may

have sexual connection with her in the ordinary sense, but that I

may lie down upon the floor on my back and be trampled upon by

her. This curious desire is seldom present unless the object of

my admiration is really a lady, and of fine proportions. She must

be richly dressed--preferably in an evening gown, and wear dainty

high-heeled slippers, either quite open so as to show the curve

of the instep, or with only one strap or 'bar' across. The skirts

should be raised sufficiently to afford me the pleasure of seeing

her feet and a liberal amount of ankle, but in no case above the

knee, or the effect is greatly reduced. Although I often greatly

admire a woman's intellect and even person, sexually no other

part of her has any serious attraction for me except the leg,

from the knee downwards, and the foot, and these must be

exquisitely clothed. Given this condition, my desire amounts to a

wish to gratify my sexual sense by contact with the (to me)

attractive part of the woman. Comparatively few women have a leg

or foot sufficiently beautiful to my mind to excite any serious

or compelling desire, but when this is so, or I suspect it, I am

willing to spend any time or trouble to get her to tread upon me

and am anxious to be trampled on with the greatest severity.

"The treading should be inflicted for a few minutes all over the

chest, abdomen and groin, and lastly on the penis, which is, of

course, lying along the belly in a violent state of erection, and

consequently too hard for the treading to damage it. I also enjoy

being nearly strangled by a woman's foot.

"If the lady finally stands facing my head and places her slipper

upon my penis so that the high heel falls about where the penis

leaves the scrotum, the sole covering most of the rest of it and

with the other foot upon the abdomen, into which I can _see_ as

well as feel it sink as she shifts her weight from one foot to

the other, orgasm takes place almost at once. Emission under

these conditions is to me an agony of delight, during which

practically the lady's whole weight should rest upon the penis.

"One reason for my special pleasure in this method seems to be

that first the heel and afterwards the sole of the slipper as it

treads upon the penis greatly check the passage of the semen and

consequently the pleasure is considerably prolonged. There is

also a curious mental side to the affair. I love to imagine that

the lady who is treading upon me is my mistress and I her slave,

and that she is doing it to punish me for some fault, or to give

_herself_ (not me) pleasure.

"It follows that the greater the contempt and severity with which

I am 'punished,' the greater becomes my pleasure. The idea of

'punishment' or 'slavery' is seldom aroused except when I have

great difficulty in accomplishing my desire and the treader is

more than usually handsome and heavy and the trampling

mercilessly inflicted. I have been trampled so long and so

mercilessly several times, that I have flinched each time the

slipper pressed its way into my aching body and have been black

and blue for days afterwards. I take the greatest interest in

leading ladies on to do this for me where I think I will not

offend, and have been surprisingly successful. I must have lain

beneath the feet of quite a hundred women, many of them of good

social position, who would never dream of permitting any ordinary

sexual intercourse, but who have been so interested or amused by

the idea as to do it for me--many of them over and over again. It

is perhaps needless to say that none of my own or the ladies'

clothing is ever removed, or disarranged, for the accomplishment

of orgasm in this manner. After a long and varied experience, I

may say that my favorite weight is 10 to 11 stone, and that

black, very high-heeled slippers, in combination with tan silk

stockings, seem to give me the greatest pleasure and create in me

the strongest desires.

"Boots, or outdoor shoes, do not attract me to anything like the

same degree, although I have, upon several occasions, enjoyed

myself fairly well by their use. Nude women repel me, and I find

no pleasure in seeing a woman in tights. I am not averse to

normal sexual connection and occasionally employ it. To me,

however, the pleasure is far inferior to that of being trampled

upon. I also derive keen pleasure--and usually have a strong

erection--from seeing a woman, dressed as I have described, tread

upon anything which yields under her foot--such as the seat of a

carriage, the cushions of a punt, a footstool, etc., and I enjoy

seeing her crush flowers by treading upon them. I have often

strolled along in the wake of some handsome lady at a picnic or

garden party, for the pleasure of seeing the grass upon which she

has trodden rise slowly again after her foot has pressed it. I

delight also to see a carriage sway as a woman leaves or enters

it--anything which needs the pressure of the foot.

"To pass now to the origin of this direction of my feelings.

"Even in early childhood I admired pretty feminine foot-gear, and

in the contemplation of it experienced vague sensations which I

now recognize as sexual. When a lad of 14 or so, I stayed a good

deal at the house of some intimate friends of my parents, the

daughter of the house--an only child--a beautiful and powerful

girl, about six years my senior, being my special chum. This girl

was always daintily dressed, and having most lovely feet and

ankles not unnaturally knew it. Whenever possible she dressed so

as to show off their beauty to the best advantage--rather short

skirts and usually little high-heeled slippers--and was not

averse to showing them in a most distractingly coquettish manner.

She seemed to have a passion for treading upon things which would

scrunch or yield under her foot, such as flowers, little

windfallen apples and pears, acorns, etc., or heaps of hay, straw

or cut grass. As we wandered about the gardens--for we were left

to do exactly as we liked--I got quite accustomed to seeing her

hunt out and tread upon such things, and used to chaff her about

it. At that time I was--as I am still--fond of lying at full

length on a thick hearthrug before a good fire. One evening as I

was lying in this way and we were alone, A. crossed the room to

reach a bangle from the mantelpiece. Instead of reaching over me,

she playfully stepped upon my body, saying that she would show me

how the hay and straw felt. Naturally I fell in with the joke and

laughed. After standing upon me a few moments she raised her

skirt slightly and, holding on to the mantelpiece for support,

stretched out one dainty foot in its brown silk stocking and

high-heeled slipper to the blaze to warm, while looking down and

laughing at my scarlet, excited face. She was a perfectly frank

and charming girl, and I feel pretty certain that, although she

evidently enjoyed my excitement and the feeling of my body

yielding under her feet, she did not on this first occasion

clearly understand my condition; nor can I remember that, though

the desire for sexual gratification drove me nearly mad, it

appeared to awaken in her any reciprocal feeling. I took hold of

her raised foot and, after kissing it, guided it by an absolutely

irresistible impulse on to my penis, which was as hard as wood

and seemed almost bursting. Almost at the moment that her weight

was thrown upon it, orgasm took place for the first time in my

life thoroughly and effectively. No description can give any idea

of what I felt--I only know that from that moment my distorted

sexual focus was fixed forever. Numberless times, after that

evening, I felt the weight of her dainty slippers, and nothing

will ever cause the memory of the pleasure she thus gave me to

fade. I know that A. came to enjoy treading upon me, as much as I

enjoyed having her do it. She had a liberal dress allowance and,

seeing the pleasure they gave me, she was always buying pretty

stockings and ravishing slippers with the highest and most

slender Louis heels she could find and would show them to me with

the greatest glee, urging me to lie down that she might try them

on me. She confessed that she loved to see and feel them sink

into my body as she trod upon me and enjoyed the crunch of the

muscles under her heel as she moved about. After some minutes of

this, I always guided her slipper on to my penis, and she would

tread carefully, but with her whole weight--probably about 9

stone--and watch me with flashing eyes, flushed cheeks, and

quivering lips, as she felt--as she must have done plainly--the

throbbing and swelling of my penis under her foot as emission

took place. I have not the smallest doubt that orgasm took place

simultaneously with her, though we never at any time spoke openly

of it. This went on for several years on almost every favorable

opportunity we had, and after a month or two of separation

sometimes four or five times during a single day. Several times

during A.'s absence I masturbated by getting her slipper and

pressing it with all my strength against the penis while

imagining that she was treading upon me. The pleasure was, of

course, very inferior to her attentions. There was never at any

time between us any question of normal sexual intercourse, and we

were both well content to let things drift as they were.

"A little after 20 I went abroad, and on my return about three

years later I found her married. Although we met often, the

subject was never alluded to, though we remained firm friends. I

confess I often, when I could do so without being seen, looked

longingly at her feet and would have gladly accepted the pleasure

she could have given me by an occasional resumption of our

strange practice--but it never came.

"I went abroad again, and now neither she nor her husband are

alive and leave no issue. From time to time I have had occasional

relations with prostitutes, but always in this manner, though I

much prefer to find some lady of or above my own social position

who will do the treading for me. This is, however, interestingly

difficult.

"Out of say a hundred women (which at home and abroad is what I

should estimate must have stood upon my body) I should say quite

80 or 85 were _not_ prostitutes. Certainly not more than 10 to 12

shared any _sexual_ excitement, but while they were evidently

excited they were not gratified. A. alone, so far as I know, had

complete sexual satisfaction of it. I have never asked a woman in

so many words to tread upon me for the purpose of gratifying my

sexual desires (prostitutes excepted), but have always tempted

them to do it in a jocular or teasing manner, and it is very

doubtful if more than a few (married) women really understood,

even after they had given me the extreme pleasure, that they had

done so, because any flushing and movement on my part under their

feet was not unnaturally put down to the trampling to which they

were subjecting me, and it was easy for me to guide the foot as

often as was necessary on to the penis till orgasm took place,

and even to keep it there by laying hold of the other one to kiss

it or on some other pretext during emission. Of course many

understood after once doing it (most have done it only once) what

I was at, and, although they did not ever discuss it nor did I,

they were not unwilling to give me as many treadings as I cared

to playfully suggest. I don't think they got any pleasure

sexually out of it themselves, though they could see plainly that

I did, and they did not object to give it me. I have spent as

long as twelve months with some women working gradually nearer

and nearer to my desire--often getting what I want in the end,

but more often failing. I _never_ risk it till I am certain it

would be safe to ask it, and have never had a serious rebuff. In

very many cases I should say the doing of what I want has simply

been regarded by the woman as gratifying a silly and perhaps

amusing whim, in which, beyond the novelty of treading on a man's

body, she has taken but little interest.

"As in normal seduction, the endeavor to win the woman over to do

what I want without arousing her antagonism is a great part of

the charm to me, and naturally the better her social position the

more difficult this becomes--and the more attractive. I have

found that in three instances prostitutes have performed the same

office for other men and knew all about it. It is not

uninteresting to note that these three women were all of fine,

massive build--one standing about 5 feet 10 inches and weighing

nearly 14 stone--but with comparatively uninteresting faces. The

weight, build and clothing count for a good deal in exciting me.

I find that a sudden check to a man at the supreme moment of

sexual pleasure tends to heighten and prolong the pleasure. My

physical satisfaction is due to the fact that by getting the lady

to stand with all her weight upon my penis (as it lies between

her foot and the soft bed of my own body into which it is deeply

pressed) the act of emission is enormously prolonged, with

corresponding enjoyment. For this reason also I prefer a very

high-heeled slipper. The seminal fluid has to be forced past two

separate obstacles--the pressure of the heel close at the root of

the penis and afterwards the ball of the foot which compresses

the outer half, leaving a free portion between them under the

arched sole of the slipper. I may add that the pleasure is

greatly increased by the retention of the urine, and I always try

to retain as much water as I dare. I have an unconquerable

aversion to red in slippers or stockings; it will even cause

impotence. Why, I know not. Strange as it may seem, although pain

and bruising are often inflicted by a severe treading, I have

never been in any way injured by the practice, and my pleasure in

it seems not to diminish by constant repetition. The comparative

difficulty of obtaining the pleasure from just the woman I want

has a never-ending, if inexplicable, charm for me."

It will be observed that in this case special importance is

attached to shoes with high heels, and the subject considers that

the pressure of such shoes is for mechanical reasons most

favorable for procuring ejaculation. Nearly all heterosexual

shoe-fetichists seem, however, to be equally attracted by high

heels. Restif de la Bretonne frequently referred to this point,

and he gave a number of reasons for the attractiveness of high

heels: (1) They are unlike men's boots and, therefore, have a

sexual fascination; (2) they make the leg and foot look more

charming; (3) they give a less bold and more sylph-like character

to the walk; (4) they keep the feet clean. (Restif de la

Bretonne, _Nuits de Paris_, vol. v, quoted in Preface to his _Mes

Inscriptions_, p. ciii.) It is doubtless the first reason--the

fact that high heels are a kind of secondary sexual

character--which is most generally potent in this attraction.

The foregoing history, while it very distinctly brings before us a case of

erotic symbolism, is not strictly an example of shoe-fetichism. The

symbolism is more complex. The focus of beauty in a desirable woman is

transferred and concentrated in the region below the knee; in that sense

we have foot-fetichism. But the act of coitus itself is also symbolically

transferred. Not only has the foot become the symbol of the vulva, but

trampling has become the symbol of coitus; intercourse takes place

symbolically _per pedem_. It is a result of this symbolization of the foot

and of trampling that all acts of treading take on a new and symbolical

sexual charm. The element of masochism--of pleasure in being a woman's

slave--is a parasitic growth; that is to say, it is not founded in the

subject's constitution, but chances to have found a favorable soil in the

special circumstances under which his sexual life developed. It is not

primary, but secondary, and remains an unimportant and merely occasional

element.

It may be instructive to bring forward for comparison a case in which also

we have a symbolism involving boot-fetichism, but extending beyond it. In

this case there is a basis of inversion (as is not infrequent in erotic

symbolisms), but from the present point of view the psychological

significance of the case remains the same.

A.N., aged 29, unmarried, healthy, though not robust, and without

any known hereditary taint. Has followed various avocations

without taking great interest in them, but has shown some

literary ability.

"I am an Englishman," his own narrative runs, "the third of three

children. At my birth my father was 41 and my mother 34. My

mother died of cancer when I was 15. My father is still alive, a

reserved man, who still nurses his sorrow for his wife's death. I

have no reason to believe my parents anything but normal and

useful members of society. My sister is normal and happily

married. My brother I have reason to believe to be an invert.

"A horoscope cast for me describes me in a way I think correct,

and so do my friends: 'A mild, obliging, gentle, amiable person,

with many fine traits of character; timid in nature, fond of

society, loving peace and quietude, delighting in warm and close

friendships. There is much that is firm, steadfast and

industrious, some self-love, a good deal of diplomacy, a little

that is subtle, or what is called finesse. You are reserved with

those you dislike. There is a serious and sad side to your

character; you are very thoughtful and contemplative when in

these moods. But you are not pessimistic. You have superior

abilities, for they are intuitively intellectual. There is a cold

reticence which restrains generous impulses and which inclines to

acquisitiveness; it will make you deliberate, inventive, adding

self-esteem, some vanity.'

"At an early age I was left much alone in the nursery and there

contracted the habit of masturbation long before the age of

puberty. I use the word 'masturbation' for want of a better,

though it may not quite describe my case. I have never used my

hand to the penis. As far back as I can remember I have had what

a Frenchman has described as 'le fetichisme de la chaussure,' and

in those early days, before I was 6 years old, I would put on my

father's boots, taken from a cupboard at hand, and then tying or

strapping my legs together would produce an erection, and all the

pleasurable feelings experienced, I suppose, by means of

masturbation. I always did this secretly, but couldn't tell why.

I continued this practice on and off all my boyhood and youth.

When I discovered the first emission I was much surprised. I

always did this thing without loosening my trousers. As to how

these feelings arose I am totally unable to say. I can't remember

being without such feelings, and they seem to me perfectly

normal. The sight, or even thought, of high boots, or leggings,

especially if well polished or in patent leather, would set all

my sexual passions aflame, and does yet. As a boy my great desire

was to wear these things. A soldier in boots and spurs, a groom

in tops, or even an errand-boy in patent leather leggings,

fascinated me, and to this day, despite reason and everything

else. The sight of such things produced an erection. An emission

I could always produce by tightly tying my legs together, but

only when wearing boots, and preferably leggings, which when I

had pocket money I bought for this purpose. (At the present

moment I have five pairs in the house and two pairs of high

boots, quite unjustified by ordinary use.) This habit I lapse

into yet at times. The smell of leather affects me, but I never

know how far this may be due to association with boots; the smell

suggests the image. Restraint by a leather strap is more exciting

than by cords. Erotic dreams always take the form of restraint on

the limbs when booted.

"Uniforms and liveries have a great temptation for me, but only

when of a tight-fitting nature and smart, as soldiers', grooms',

etc., but not sailors'; most powerfully when the person is in

boots or leggings and breeches.

"I was a quiet, sensitive boy, taking no part in games or sports.

Have always been indifferent to them. I made few friends, but

didn't want them. The craving for friendship came much later,

after I was 21. I was a day boy at a private school, and never

had any conversation with any boy on sexual matters, though I was

dimly aware of much 'nastiness' about the school. I knew nothing

of sodomy. But all these things were repulsive to me,

notwithstanding my secret practices. I was a 'good boy.'

"Up to the age of 21 I was perfectly satisfied with my own

society, something of a prig, fond of books and reading, etc. I

was and ever have been absolutely insensible to the influence of

the other sex. I am not a woman hater, and take intellectual

pleasure in the society of certain ladies, but they are nearly

all much older than myself. I have a strong repulsion from sexual

relations with women. I should not mind being married for the

sake of companionship and for the sake of having boys of my own.

But the sexual act would frighten me. I could not in my present

frame of mind go to bed with a woman. Yet I feel an immense envy

of my married friends in that they are able to give out, and find

satisfaction for, their affection in a way that is quite

impossible for me. I picture certain boys in the place of the

wife.

"I am now only happy in the society of men younger than myself,

age 17 to (say) 23 or 24, youths with smooth faces, or first sign

of hair on lip, well groomed, slightly effeminate in feature, of

sympathetic, perhaps weak nature. I feel I want to help them, do

something for them, devote myself entirely to their welfare.

"With such there is no fixed line between friendship and love. I

yearn for intimacy with particular friends, but never dare

express it. I find so many people object to any strong expression

of feeling that I dare not run the risk of appearing ridiculous

in the eyes of these desired intimates.

"I have no desire for _pædicatio_, but the idea itself does not

repulse me or seem unnatural, though personally it repels me a

little. But I think this to be mere prejudice on my part, which

might be broken down if the loved person showed a willingness to

act a passive part. I should never dare to make an advance,

however.

"I am restrained by moral and religious considerations from

making my real feelings known, and I feel I should sink in my own

estimation if I gave way, though my natural desire is to do so.

In the face of opportunities (not I mean of _pædicatio_, but of

expression of excessive affection, etc.), or what might be such,

I always fail to speak lest I should forfeit the esteem of the

other person. I have a feeling of surprise when any one I like

evinces a liking for me. I feel that those I love are

immeasurably my superiors, though my reason may tell me it is not

so. I would grovel at their feet, do anything to win a smile from

them, or to make them give me their company.

"Ordinary bodily contact with the boy I love gives me most

exquisite pleasure, and I never lose an opportunity of bringing

such contact about when it can be done naturally. I feel an

immense desire to embrace, kiss, squeeze, etc., the person, to

generally maul him, and say nice things--the kind of things a man

usually says to a woman. A handshake, the mere presence of the

person, makes me happy and content.

"I can say with the Albanian: 'If I find myself in the presence

of the beloved, I rest absorbed in gazing on him. Absent, I think

of nought but him. If the beloved unexpectedly appears I fall

into confusion. My heart beats faster. I have eyes and ears only

for the beloved.'

"I feel that my capacity of affection is finer and more spiritual

than that which commonly subsists between persons of different

sexes. And so, while trying to fight my instincts by religion, I

find my natural feeling to be part of my religion, and its

highest expression. In this sense I can speak from experience in

my own case, and more especially in that of my brother, that what

you have said about philanthropic activity resulting from

repressed homosexuality is very true indeed. I can say with one

of your female cases: 'Love is to me a religion. The very nature

of my affection for my friends precludes the possibility of any

element entering into it which is not absolutely pure and

sacred.' I am, however, madly jealous. I want entire possession,

and I can't bear for a moment that any one I do not care for

should know the person I love.

"I am never attracted by men older than myself. The youths who

attract me may be of any class, though preferably, I think, of a

class a little lower than myself. I am not quite sure of this,

however, as circumstances may have contributed more than

deliberate choice to bring certain youths under my notice. Those

who have exercised the most powerful influence on me have been an

Oxford undergraduate, a barber's assistant, and a plumber's

apprentice. Though naturally fond of intellectual society, I do

not ask for intellect in those I love. It goes for nothing. I

always prefer their company to that of the most educated persons.

This preference has alienated me to some extent from more refined

and educated circles that formerly I was intimate with.

"I have been led entirely out of my old habits by association

with younger friends, and now do things which before I should

never have dreamed of doing. My thoughts now are always with

certain youths, and if they speak of leaving the town, or in any

way talk of a future that I cannot share, I suffer horrid

sinkings of the heart and depression of spirits."

This case, while it concerns a person of quite different temperament, with

a more innate predisposition to specific perversions, is yet in many

respects analogous to the previous case. There is boot-fetichism; nothing

is felt to be so attractive as the foot-gear, and there is also at the

same time more than this; there is the attraction of repression and

constraint developed into a sexual symbol. In C.P.'s case that symbolism

arises from the experience of an abnormal heterosexual relationship; in

A.N.'s case it is founded on auto-erotic experiences associated with

inversion; in both alike the entire symbolism has become diffused and

generalized.

In the two cases just brought forward we have an erotic symbolism of act

founded on, and closely associated with, an erotic symbolism of object. It

may be instructive to bring forward another case in which no fetichistic

feeling toward an object can be traced, but an erotic symbolism still

clearly exists. In this case pain, even when self-inflicted, has acquired

a symbolic value as a stimulus to tumescence, without any element of

masochism. Such a case serves to indicate how the sexual attraction of

pain is really a special case of the erotic symbolism with which we are

here concerned.

A.W., aged 50, a writer and lecturer, physically and mentally

energetic and enjoying good health. He is, however, very

emotional and of nervous temperament, but self-controlled. Though

physically well developed, the sexual organs are small. He is

married to an attractive woman, to whom he is much attached, and

has two healthy children.

At 10 or 12 years of age he had a frequent desire to be whipped,

his parents never having struck him, and on one occasion he asked

a brother to go with him to the closet to get him to whip him on

the posterior; but on arrival he was too shy to make the request.

He did not recognize the cause of these desires, knowing nothing

of such things except from the misinformation of his

school-fellows' talk. As far as he can remember, he was an

entirely normal, healthy boy up to the age of about 15, when his

attention was arrested by an advertisement of a quack medicine

for the results of "youthful excesses."

Being a city boy, he was unfamiliar with the coupling even of

animals, had never had a conscious erection and did not know of

frictional excitement. Experiment, however, resulted in an

orgasm, and, though believing that it was wicked or at least weak

and degrading, he indulged in masturbation at intervals, usually

about six times a month, and has continued even up to the

present.

He had an abnormally small opening in the prepuce, making the

uncovering of the glans almost impossible. (At the age of about

37, he himself slit the prepuce by three or four cuts of a

scissors at intervals of about ten days. This was followed by a

marked decrease in desire, especially as he shortly afterwards

learned the importance of local cleanliness.) While in college at

about the age of 19 he began to have nocturnal emissions

occasionally and once or twice a week when at stool. Alarmed by

these, he consulted a physician, who warned him of the danger,

gave him bromide and prescribed cold bathing of the parts, with a

hard, cool bed. These stopped the emissions.

He never had connection with women until the age of about 25, and

then only three times until his marriage at 30 years of age,

being deterred partly by conscientious scruples, but more by

shyness and convention, and deriving very little pleasure from

these instances. Even since marriage he has derived more pleasure

from sexual excitement than from coitus, and can maintain

erection for as long as two hours.

He has always been accustomed to torture himself in various

ingenious ways, nearly always connected with sex. He would burn

his skin deeply with red hot wire in inconspicuous places. These

and similar acts were generally followed by manual excitation

nearly always brought to a climax.

He considers that he is attracted to refined and intellectual

women. But he is without very ardent desires, having several

times gone to bed with attractive women who stripped themselves

naked, but without attempting any sexual intercourse with them.

He became interested in the "Karezza" theory and has tried to

practice it with his wife, but could never entirely control the

emission.

He has hired a masseur to whip him, as children are whipped, with

a heavy dog whip, which caused pleasurable excitement. During

this time he had relations with his wife generally about once a

week without any great ecstasy. She was cold and sexually slow,

owing to conventional sex repression and to an idea that the

whole thing was "like animals" and to fear of child-bearing,

usually necessitating the use of a cover or withdrawal. It was

only eight years after their marriage that she desired and

obtained a child. During these years he would often stick pins

through his mammæ and tie them together by a string round the

pins drawn so short as to cause great pain and then indulge

himself in the sexual act. He used strong wooden clips with a

tack fixed in them, so as to pierce and pinch the mammæ, and once

he drove a pin entirely through the penis itself, then obtaining

orgasm by friction. He was never able to get an automatic

emission in this way, though he often tried, not even by walking

briskly during an erection.

In another class of cases a purely ideal symbolism may be present by means

of a fetich which acts as a powerful stimulus without itself being felt to

possess any attraction. A good illustration of this condition is furnished

by a case which has been communicated to me by a medical correspondent in

New Zealand.

"The patient went out to South Africa as a trooper with the

contingent from New Zealand, throwing up a good position in an

office to do so. He had never had any trouble as regards

connection with women before going out to South Africa. While in

active service at the front he sustained a nasty fall from his

horse, breaking his leg. He was unconscious for four days, and

was then invalided down to Cape Town. Here he rapidly got well,

and his accustomed health returning to him he started having what

he terms 'a good time.' He repeatedly went to brothels, but was

unable to have more than a temporary erection, and no ejaculation

would take place. In one of these places he was in company with a

drunken trooper, who suggested that they should perform the

sexual act with their boots and spurs (only) on. My patient, who

was also drunk, readily assented, and to his surprise was enabled

to perform the act of copulation without any difficulty at all.

He has repeatedly tried since to perform the act without any

spurs, but is quite unable to do so; with the spurs he has no

difficulty at all in obtaining all the gratification he desires.

His general health is good. His mother was an extremely nervous

woman, and so is his sister. His father died when he was quite

young. His only other relation in the colony is a married sister,

who seems to enjoy vigorous health."

The consideration of the cases here brought forward may suffice to show

that beyond those fetichisms which find their satisfaction in the

contemplation of a part of the body or a garment, there is a more subtle

symbolism. The foot is a center of force, an agent for exerting pressure,

and thus it furnishes a point of departure not alone for the merely static

sexual fetich, but for a dynamic erotic symbolization. The energy of its

movements becomes a substitute for the energy of the sexual organs

themselves in coitus, and exerts the same kind of fascination. The young

girl (page 35) "who seemed to have a passion for treading upon things

which would scrunch or yield under her foot," already possessed the germs

of an erotic symbolism which, under the influence of circumstances in

which she herself took an active part, developed into an adequate method

of sexual gratification.[23] The youth who was her partner learned, in the

same way, to find an erotic symbolism in all the pressure reactions of

attractive feminine feet, the swaying of a carriage beneath their weight,

the crushing of the flowers on which they tread, the slow rising of the

grass which they have pressed. Here we have a symbolism which is

altogether different from that fetichism which adores a definite object;

it is a dynamic symbolism finding its gratification in the spectacle of

movements which ideally recall the fundamental rhythm and pressure

reactions of the sexual process.

We may trace a very similar erotic symbolism in an absolutely normal form.

The fascination of clothes in the lover's eyes is no doubt a complex

phenomenon, but in part it rests on the aptitudes of a woman's garments to

express vaguely a dynamic symbolism which must always remain indefinite

and elusive, and on that account always possess fascination. No one has so

acutely described this symbolism as Herrick, often an admirable

psychologist in matters of sexual attractiveness. Especially instructive

in this respect are his poems, "Delight in Disorder," "Upon Julia's

Clothes," and notably "Julia's Petticoat." "A sweet disorder in the

dress," he tells us, "kindles in clothes a wantonness;" it is not on the

garment itself, but on the character of its movement that he insists; on

the "erring lace," the "winning wave" of the "tempestuous petticoat;" he

speaks of the "liquefaction" of clothes, their "brave vibration each way

free," and of Julia's petticoat he remarks with a more specific symbolism

still,

"Sometimes 'twould pant and sigh and heave,

As if to stir it scarce had leave;

But having got it, thereupon,

'Twould make a brave expansion."

In the play of the beloved woman's garment, he sees the whole process of

the central act of sex, with its repressions and expansions, and at the

sight is himself ready to "fall into a swoon."