Women's heels, in Western Europe, evolved from shoes worn by Persian cavalrymen; they were designed to stay in the stirrup. You still see something similar in "cowboy boots".
Women appropriated the shoes as a symbol of empowerment at a time when other "butch" fashions were being borrowed (e.g., epaulets). That they made intimidated clomping noises as you walked around was half the appeal.
Then the shoes became more and more "feminine", culminating in the "stiletto", which takes its name from a dagger used to finish off armored soldiers.
So they've always been symbols of violence.
Which makes all the more ironic that their wearers experience feet aches and leg problems, and view them as tools of male oppression. Maybe you should just stop clomping around in the things. They ruin good marble floors, make loud noises, and pain me just to look at. The whole point is for riding a horse. If you're off a horse, then it's like walking around in ski boots.
Personally, I believe this has much more to do with the taboo nature of feet (as they are usually seen as dirty), similarly to other fetishes (e.g. urine).
Foot fetishism is by no means a modern phenomenon driven by advertising.
i think everything that is closed/covered becomes such a taboo/fetish. Feet have been in shoes (and under a long dress for women) most of the recent times. Give a couple years more of the mask regime and lips/noses would become taboo/fetish too :)
Lately it’s gotten to be more of an “in theory” than “in practice” thing for me as I’ve come to learn about fungus and micro biome, etc.
Eg https://au.news.yahoo.com/man-contracts-lung-infection-smell...
You mean, besides them being awesome?
Check out the "The Penfield homunculus" and note that in the brain's sensory map, where we process foot sensations is very close to genitalia.
It's other people's feet people like, not their own (and so don't themselves feel those sensations when they touch them or whatever).
So it would not be something that a person is just interested in and grows with time, but a primal thing that just gets activated at a certain age for him (just like attraction to a different/same gender for most of us)
He seemed respectful and she seemed unbothered by the whole ordeal. Interesting, not my cup of tea, but definitely interesting.
Something else that caught my attention was how early he believes his interest for feet developed, as early as six and nine years of age. I wonder how this slightly amusing predilection grows and develops over time, as to even gain sexual connotation.