Many of the fetish clubs have
special events for foot worship,
which can also be associated (but
not necessarily) with domination,
bondage, and S&M. Kissing and
worshiping someone’s feet is
commonly regarded as subservient
and submissive: therefore it often
forms part of domination practices.
Origins and explanation
Neurologist Vilayanur S.
Ramachandran proposed that foot
fetishism is caused by the feet and
the genitals occupying adjacent
areas of the somatosensory cortex
in the brain, possibly involving
some neural crosstalk between
the two.
4
Researchers have hypothesised
that foot fetishism increases
during epidemics of sexually
transmitted diseases. In one
study, the frequency of foot-fetish
depictions in the mass-circulation
pornographic literature was
measured over a 30-year period.
An exponential increase was
noted during the period of the
recent AIDS epidemic. Increased
interest in feet as sexual objects
has also been observed during the
syphilis epidemics of the 16th and
19th centuries in Europe. In such
periods of epidemics, perhaps it is
regarded as a safer way of sexual
arousal than full penetrative sexual
intercourse!