Foot fetishism, foot partialism, foot worship, or podophilia is a pronounced sexual interest in feet. It is the most common form of sexual preference for otherwise non-sexual objects or body parts.


Foot fetish has been defined as a pronounced sexual interest in the feet or footwear. Freud considered foot binding as a form of fetishism.

For a foot fetishist, points of attraction include the shape and size of the foot and toes (e.g., long toes, short toes, pointed toes, high arches, slender soles, fat toes, long toenails, short toenails, small feet, toenail color), jewelry, toe rings, ankle bracelets, treatments e.g. French pedicure, state of dress (e.g. barefoot, flip flops, or clad in socks or nylons), odor, and any form of sensory interaction, e.g. licking, kissing, sucking, tickling, person giving foot jobs, pedal pumping or trampling/stomping.

In order to estimate the relative frequency of fetishes researchers at the University of Bologna examined 381 Internet discussions of fetish groups, in which at least 5,000 people had been participating.

Researchers estimated the prevalences of different fetishes based on
(a) the number of discussion groups devoted to a particular fetish,
(b) the number of individuals participating in the groups and
(c) the number of messages exchanged. It was concluded that the most common fetishes were for body parts or for objects usually associated with body parts (33% and 30% respectively).

Among those people preferring body parts, feet and toes were preferred by the greatest number, with 47% of those sampled preferring them. Among those people preferring objects related to body parts, footwear (shoes, boots, etc.) was most preferred (64%).

Some researchers have hypothesized that foot fetishism increases as a response to epidemics of sexually transmitted diseases. In one study, conducted by Dr. A James Giannini at Ohio State University an increased interest in feet as sexual objects was observed during the great gonorrhea epidemic of twelfth century Europe, and the syphilis epidemics of the 16th and 19th centuries in Europe.

In the same study, the frequency of foot-fetish depictions in pornographic literature was measured over a 30 year interval. An exponential increase was noted during the period of the current AIDS epidemic.

In these cases, sexual foot play was viewed as a safe-sex alternative. However, the researchers noted that these epidemics overlapped periods of relative female emancipation. Sexual focus on female feet was also hypothesized to have been a reflection of a more dominant posture of the woman in sexual-social relations. (The first surviving mention of foot fetish is by Bertold of Regensburg in 1220.

A handjob is the manual stimulation of the penis. The manual stimulation of a female's sex organs is usually called fingering, although sometimes "handjob" is used to refer to this act as well.


A handjob may or may not end in ejaculation or orgasm; it may or may not constitute the entire sexual encounter. A handjob may be part of foreplay or part of or a precursor to other sexual activities.

It can provide sexual pleasure to a partner when penetrative intercourse is not possible or desirable. Little physical effort is required for a handjob, and the male is not distracted by the effort of thrusting or the need to stimulate his partner's sexual organs.

A handjob can incorporate a large amount of stimulation and variety and, as with other forms of sexual stimulation, the giving partner can receive significant pleasure and sexual arousal, because they can directly control and observe the sexual excitement and physical reactions of their partner. Handjobs can be enhanced by using oil to lubricate the penis and the hand.

The expression "happy ending" is a colloquial term for the practice of those massage therapists who are also sex workers, offering sexual release to a client. According to a 1975 study by A.J. Velarde, in an unnamed west-coast city in the United States, provision of a "hand job", where the woman gave the client a handjob, was one of the services female masseuses were employed to give.

Subsequent newspaper publicity of this practice caused local councils to impose licensing requirements upon masseuses similar to the ones used on prostitutes. This licensing led to increased expectations in massage parlour clients, who expected that more than a handjob would be available, that is, sexual intercourse.

Because the masseuses themselves considered that they had nothing to lose in acting as prostitutes, and because the local council treated them as prostitutes anyway, masseuses often complied, and thus attracted more prostitution to the city.

While physicians of the period acknowledged that the disorder stemmed from sexual dissatisfaction, they seemed unaware of or unwilling to admit the sexual purposes of the devices used to treat it.


In fact, the introduction of the speculum was far more controversial than that of the vibrator. By the turn of the century, the spread of home electricity brought the vibrator to the consumer market. The appeal of cheaper treatment in the privacy of one’s own home understandably made the vibrator a popular early home appliance.

In fact, the electric home vibrator was on the market before many other home appliance ’essentials’: nine years before the electric vacuum cleaner and 10 years before the electric iron. A page from a Sears catalog of home electrical appliances from 1918 includes a portable vibrator with attachments, billed as ”Very useful and satisfactory for home service.

Erotic massages are typically performed in a person's erogenous zones to achieve or enhance sexual arousal. In the case of women, the two focal areas are the breasts and pubis. In case of men, the focal area is the genitals.

Erotic massage may be utilized as a sex therapy, that is, as a means of stimulating the libido, or increasing the ability of a person to respond positively to sensual stimulus.

In some cases, erotic massage can be a form of foreplay without sexual gratification, intended to heighten the sensitivity of an individual prior to another engagement where sexual arousal and fulfillment is intended.

In other cases, erotic massage may be used professionally to help men address issues of premature ejaculation. Methods employed may teach the recipient to relax the musculature of his pelvis and thus prolong arousal and increase pleasure.