In his Studies in the Psychology
of Sex, Havelock Ellis states, "Of all the forms of erotic
symbolism, the most frequent is that which idealizes the foot and
shoe."
Look around. Obvious signs of
sexual emphasis are everywhere. Just one example is the shiny, brightly colored openbacked heeled shoe. Often the front of the shoe is cut open, revealing protruding
toes and foot cleavage.
Freud declares the shoe or slipper
a "symbol of the female genitals." The shoe has always been associated with fertility
customs, marriage and romance.
Many of us can remember from elementary school hearing
about the gallant Sir Walter Raleigh spreading his cape over a
muddied street so that Queen Elizabeth could cross without
dirtying her slippers.
The drinking of wine from the
dainty slipper of a lover is a well-known symbol of romance. Many a lover has attested to the attributes of this ambrosia.
The custom of tying shoes to the
departing car of newlyweds is symbolic of the sexual union, and there are countless versions of this custom being played out in different cultures.
The foot itself is responsible,
says Rossi, for the erotic image of the entire human body. Upright
posture and bipedal gait created the figure as we know it, bringing
bosom, abdomen and thighs into view. It created erogenous zones and
visual sex appeal features. This position made human frontal copulation, unique in
all nature, possible. Visual stimuli and continuity of sexual
excitement led to year-round sex. This was the beginning of our
psychosexual inhibitions and fantasies.
Freud discusses how the role of
scent as a sexual stimulant in animals and insects was replaced by visual stimuli in humans.
It is our bipedal stance that literally lifted us from the ground,
exposed us, leading to feelings of shame and modesty. Therefore
we have an innate sense that the feet are somehow responsible
for our sexuality.
Florenz Ziegfeld, whose beautiful
showgirls graced the stages of the l920s, interviewed the girls by first watching them walk in high heels from behind a white screen, thus seeing only their
silhouettes. "Before I see their faces, I want to see how they
walk. There's more sex in a walk than in a face or even in a
figure."
Gypsy Rose Lee, the famous
stripper, knew the power of a high-heeled shoe. This great sexual teaser would never be
caught on stage without a magnificent pair of shoes.
The high heel and the position it
creates for the foot is a strong sexual stimulus. The feet are plantar-flexed (not
perpendicular to the leg as they are in a relaxed position). This
is the position emphasized for the foot in any centerfold picture.
It is also achieved in the sexy crossing of legs where one foot
teasingly flexes forward. The extension of the foot, pointing of
the toes, particularly with a circular movement, is a strong body
language signal saying "I'm available."
In women another attribute of
sexuality is small feet. The tiny delicate foot is extolled in the
shoe store as it is in literature.
The Cinderella story promotes the
virtues of the small foot as a symbol of femininity and sexual
desirability. With hundreds of versions throughout the world, this
folk tale often bordered on erotic literature. It was the Grimm brothers who tamed it for
children.
One of the oldest known versions
dates back to ancient Egypt. A beautiful girl named Rhodopis was bathing in the River Nile, when an eagle swooped down and flew off to Memphis
with one of her dainty slippers. This he deposited at the foot of
King Psamtik. The king was overcome with passion for the
owner of the slipper. He envisioned her image with lecherous
eagerness. Obsessed by thoughts of the girl, he journeyed
through the kingdom, trying the slipper on the feet of young
maidens until he finally found Rhodopis and married her. The
Third Pyramid of Gizeh stands as testimony to this union.
In seventeenth-century Europe,
Perrault wrote another version of the Cinderella story. This version contained
obvious erotic inferences, many of which were lost in the translation from French. Rossi
states that his image of the foot being inserted into a furry
slipper has phallic-yoni symbolism. "The romantic union of the
prince and Cinderella was sexually symbolized by the suggestive
union of the virginal phallic foot and the furry yoni shoes."
A ninth-century Chinese version of
the Cinderella tale, Rossi suggests, may have given rise to the custom of footbinding
which exemplifies the ultimate in foot eroticism and fetish.
For nearly one thousand years this podoerotomania
captivated the Chinese imagination. The foot took on a new role in
human sexuality, becoming a sexual organ itself. Hundreds of
millions of people were caught up in this sexual mania, the
lingering effects of which can even be seen today in the feet of
some elderly Chinese women. Even non-Orientals living in
China were devotees of the practice. "Unbound women" were
stigmatized with remarks such as "goosefoot" and "demon with
huge feet."
Chinese males were obsessed with
the sexuality of the hound foot, dreaming of catching a glimpse of the desirable appendage
unfettered. The "lotus foot" as it was called (because the
resulting walk resembled the delicate swaying movement of the
lotus plant in the wind) was regarded as the most erotic part of
the entire female anatomy -- pornography and prostitution centered
around the lotus foot. Intellectuals, warriors, and noblemen were
as charmed by its aphrodisiac powers as were the common folk.
Religious movements were completely ineffective in trying to
stop the licentious foot-binding practice.
The Chinese always had a
fascination for small feet, regarding
them as a sign of fine breeding and grace. They scaled down the
foot to accommodate this image, often to a mere four inches
long.
The process was begun in girls of
five or six years of age, when their bones were soft and malleable. The four small toes were bent under the ball of the foot as far as possible and secured with
progressively tighter bandages. The large toe was left free for
propulsion in walking, and for balance. The foot was gradually
bent as a cross bow, bringing heel and toes as close together as
possible. The heel bone was brought into a near vertical position
and a high arch was created.
The bandages served in much the
same manner as a brace
does for the teeth, redirecting growth and shaping to the
desired effect. There was a great deal of discomfort from the
bandages but girls grew immune to it much in the same way that
women today have accommodated pointed shoes and high
heels. In fact, upon X-ray the lotus foot resembles the X-ray foot
of a woman in high heels.
The normal hard callus tissue on
the bottom of the foot became soft and fleshy in the deep cleft of the arch. Chinese men
found the way these women walked -- the tops of their toes in
a delicate, willowy gait -- extremely exciting.
Because of the great difficulty
the women had in walking they were excluded from the drudgery of hard work. Imagine women working in a corn field in extremely high heeled shoes!
It seems that women have always
been amenable to having their feet deformed, thereby altering their gait and creating the
illusion of tiny feet.
Rossi said, "If the Chinese
concentrated their deformation on the foot, American, European, and other women (and often men) have for centuries been doing the same with tight shoes,
the wearing of styles that have no kinship with natural foot
shape, high heels that force alterations in the whole anatomy,
stiff-soled shoes that prevent natural foot function, laced shoes
and boots that impede circulation, and platform soles that can
jeopardize human life itself."
Yet women continue to get pleasure
from wearing shoes that intoxicate the male psyche. They endure the pain for the satisfaction of being more sexually desirable.
The women's liberation movement
initially made inroads into
this self-inflicted podomasochism and for a while more sensible
low heeled styles were in fashion. Even comfortable sports
shoes were worn on the job. These, however, have been in direct
conflict with the erotic nature of the foot.
The executive woman soon realized
that she could do a man's job but she was not psychosexually comfortable walking in a
man's shoes. So we are returning to the days where the shoes fit
the psyche, not the foot.