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
manœuvre 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."
[13]
G. Stanley Hall, Adolescence, vol. ii, p. 113. It will be
noted that the hand does not appear among the parts of the body which are
normally of supreme interest. An interest in the hand is by no means
uncommon (it may be noted, for instance, in the course of History XII in
Appendix B to vol. iii of these Studies), but the hand does not possess
the mystery which envelops the foot, and hand-fetichism is very much less
frequent than foot-fetichism, while glove-fetichism is remarkably rare. An
interesting case of hand-fetichism, scarcely reaching morbid intensity, is
recorded by Binet, Etudes de Psychologie Expérimentale, pp. 13-19; and
see Krafft-Ebing, Op. cit., pp. 214 et seq.
[14]
Mémoires, vol. i, Chapter VII.
[15]
Among leading English novelists Hardy shows an unusual but
by no means predominant interest in the feet and shoes of his heroines;
see, e.g., the observations of the cobbler in Under the Greenwood
Tree, Chapter III. A chapter in Goethe's Wahlverwandtschaften (Part I,
Chapter II) contains an episode involving the charm of the foot and the
kissing of the beloved's shoe.
[16]
Schinz, "Philosophie des Conventions Sociales," Revue
Philosophique, June, 1903, p. 626. Mirabeau mentions in his Erotika
Biblion that modern Greek women sometimes use their feet to provoke
orgasm in their lovers. I may add that simultaneous mutual masturbation by
means of the feet is not unknown to-day, and I have been told by an
English shoe-fetichist that he at one time was accustomed to practice this
with a married lady (Brazilian)—she with slippers on and he without—who
derived gratification equal to his own.
[17]
Jacoby (loc. cit. pp. 796-7) gives a large number of
references to Ovid's works bearing on this point. "In reading him," he
remarks, "one is inclined to say that the psychology of the Romans was
closely allied to that of the Chinese."
[18]
R. Kleinpaul, Sprache ohne Worte, p. 308. See also Moll,
Konträre Sexualempfindung, third edition, pp. 306-308. Bloch brings
together many interesting references bearing on the ancient sexual and
religious symbolism of the shoe, Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia
Sexualis, Teil II, p. 324.
[19]
Jacoby (loc. cit. p. 797) appears to regard shoe-fetichism
as a true atavism: "The sexual adoration of feminine foot-gear," he
concludes, "perhaps the most enigmatic and certainly the most singular of
degenerative insanities, is thus merely a form of atavism, the return of
the degenerate to the very ancient and primitive psychology which we no
longer understand and are no longer capable of feeling."
[20]
Moll has reported in detail (Untersuchungen über die Libido
Sexualis, bd. i, Teil II, pp. 320-324) a case which both he and
Krafft-Ebing regard as illustrative of the connection between
boot-fetichism and masochism. It is essentially a case of masochism,
though manifesting itself almost exclusively in the desire to perform
humiliating acts in connection with the attractive person's boots.
[21]
Krafft-Ebing goes so far as to assert (Psychopathia
Sexualis, English translation of tenth edition, p. 174) that "when in
cases of shoe-fetichism the female shoe appears alone as the excitant of
sexual desire one is justified in presuming that masochistic motives have
remained latent.... Latent masochism may always be assumed as the
unconscious motive." In this way he hopelessly misinterprets some of his
own cases.
[22]
Krafft-Ebing goes so far as to assert (Psychopathia
Sexualis, English translation, pp. 159 and 174). Yet some of the cases he
brings forward (e.g., Coxe's as quoted by Hammond) show no sign of
masochism, since, according to Krafft-Ebing's own definition (p. 116), the
idea of subjugation by the opposite sex is of the essence of masochism.
[23]
Her actions suggest that there is often a latent sexual
consciousness in regard to the feet in women, atavistic or
pseudo-atavistic, and corresponding to the sexual attraction which the
feet formerly aroused, almost normally, in men. This is also suggested by
the case, referred to by Shufeldt, of an unmarried woman, belonging to a
family exhibiting in a high degree both erotic and neurotic traits, who
had "a certain uncontrollable fascination for shoes. She delights in new
shoes, and changes her shoes all day long at regular intervals of three
hours each. She keeps this row of shoes out in plain sight in her
apartment." (R. W. Shufeldt, "On a Case of Female Impotency," 1896, p.
10.) |
