What'southward the number one thing you look for in a partner?

Y'all might go for someone with a good sense of humour. You might love a bit of muddied talk, or someone who talks with their hands. Maybe someone with a large honking pair of... calves.

Or maybe you're into someone with beautiful piddling toes. Someone with a lateral arch that goes all the manner to heaven. Someone packing a beefed out abductor hallucis (if yous know, yous know).

Even though there's still a bit of a stigma, beingness into feet is completely salubrious and normal. A recent survey showed one in seven people take fantasised well-nigh feet.

And people are becoming much more open well-nigh it in mainstream media - contempo contestants on the UK's massively pop Love Island reality series have got deep into comparing footnotes.

Then whether you've got a foot fetish, or maybe your partner does, it'due south fourth dimension to stop hiding away in a pair of 5-year-old sneakers and slip into some sandals for our beginner's guide to foot fetishes.

What is a human foot fetish?

Firstly, let's define "fetish". In simple terms, it's an attraction to something - torso types, body parts, objects, etc - that causes sexual arousal.

So foot fetishes are where someone is strongly drawn to or very aroused by feet.

To guide united states through the nuance nosotros turned to Mistress Tokyo, a Sydney-based kink educator and dominatrix. She says no 2 foot fetishes are akin: information technology could exist many different things virtually feet that turns a person on, from the sight of them, the scent, the shape, the movement of the pes, the arch, the heel, or the toes.

Information technology could be make clean feet, dirty feet, feet in sandals, shoes, socks, or stockings.

"Besides anxiety doing activities that are probably decreed every bit being sensual, but also potentially powerful. So anxiety crushing things similar nutrient."

Merely Mistress Tokyo says it'due south super varied and can be different for each person.

"There'southward really a lot of different angles to pes fetishes. And in their own way, anybody sort of has their own detail perspective, but generally it's about the olfactory experience of the pes."

So why practice some people develop a matter for feet?

It'due south i of the nigh common fetishes, but at that place'due south not a lot of enquiry on how and why they come about.

Dr Justin Lehmiller, a researcher at the Kinsey Establish, told Men's Wellness that he thinks fetishes are learned behaviours.

"For example, allow's say you have a partner who spontaneously stimulates your genitals with their anxiety, and this is something you've never experienced before.

"Let'due south besides say that you happened to notice it very pleasurable and had an intense orgasm. This could create positive reinforcement that would pb y'all to want to repeat the experience in the time to come, thereby laying the groundwork for a pes fetish," he told Men'south Health.

Another researcher, Vilayanur Ramachandran, reckons pes fetishes can develop for some people considering the part of the brain that processes genital arousal is next door to the role of our brain that processes the sensation people get from feet.

Sigmund Freud linked it back to our childhoods (classic Freudian gear).

Then... cull your ain hazard, really.

How to tell your partner I love y'all, but I beloved your feet more

Fifty-fifty though conversations around kinks and fetishes are becoming a lot less taboo, information technology can however be hard to tell someone what yous're into.

So how do you allow your partner know you lot've got a pes fetish?

Mistress Tokyo says firstly, ready yourself that they might not share your interests.

"Accept compassion for yourself and dear for yourself and embrace yourself but likewise be aware of the fact that yous are not entitled to anyone serving your needs."

Mistress Tokyo also says hopefully yous're with someone who is supportive of y'all asking for what you lot want.

"If they're not, then I think that may be something that yous might desire to consider as an surface area of your relationship that y'all might want to actually work on," she told The Hook Upwards.

"But if someone does say aye to you like 'yes holy shit, I'm really into this, permit's become.' Or, 'hey babe, I honey you lot, then I'm interested in exploring this with you,' merely be aware that y'all really respect your partner'southward boundaries."

What if your partner tells you?

If someone is open and honest with you and tells yous they have a human foot fetish, Mistress Tokyo says be open up, curious, willing to ask questions and learn.

Then she says if they're asking you to do certain things, like for example licking your toe, take a moment to imagine that scenario happening and check in with yourself about how it makes you lot feel in your body.

"And then only finish and drop into your body and requite yourself some deep breaths, a moment of mindfulness and check in with what your body says nearly this activity," she says.

"Trust your intuition and your body to tell you whether this really is an activity that you want to explore or not."

Put your best foot forrard to have some fun

If you've decided to dip your toes into your partner's fetish, in that location'due south a lot of fun you can have.

Working every bit a dominatrix, Mistress Tokyo says some of the most pop things people are into, and y'all could attempt, are things like:

  • licking, sucking, smelling the toes and feet
  • Foot massages
  • Transport a pic of your feet
  • Trampling (walking on someone)
  • Using your feet to touch someone's genitals (like a foot chore)
  • Inserting the toes and using the foot to penetrate

Of course, Mistress Tokyo says information technology's all individual with what turns you on, but nearly importantly information technology's well-nigh consent.

Just considering someone is open up and agrees to try something, they can still change their heed.

"Whether information technology's a foot fetish, or spanking, if your feelings change during an activity, and you're not enjoying information technology anymore and yous kind of go 'I really don't want to exercise this anymore. That's indicative of your consent changing because y'all have new information that has come up in," she says.

"Therefore you demand to verbally offering that your consent has inverse and that you'd like to basically slow down or finish the activeness."

To acquire more about kinks and fetishes subscribe to The Hook Up podcast. Listen on the triple j app or wherever you lot get your podcasts.

I think I take a kink, now what?

We hear a lot about kinks and fetishes, only what actually are they? And how do people go them? In this episode, we've got your 101 into the world of kink. Plus, how to navigate it in your relationships.