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.

Erotic massage or sensuous massage is the use of massage techniques to achieve or enhance sexual arousal. Massages have been used for medical purposes for a very long time. Its use for erotic purposes also has a long history.


Today it is used by some couples on occasions as part of lovemaking, either as foreplay or as the final sex act. Erotic massages typically feature massages in erogenous zones of the body to increase sexual arousal.

In the Western medical tradition genital massage of a woman to orgasm by a physician or midwife was a standard treatment for female hysteria, an ailment considered common and chronic in women.

In 1653, Pieter van Foreest advised the technique of genital massage for a disease called "womb disease" to bring the woman into "hysterical paroxysm". Such cases were quite profitable for physicians, since the patients were at no risk of death, but needed constant treatment.

However, the vaginal massage procedure (generally referred to as 'pelvic massage') was tedious and time consuming for physicians. The technique was difficult for a physician to master and could take hours to achieve "hysterical paroxysm."

Referral to midwives, which had been common practice, meant a loss of business for the physician, and at times husbands were asked to assist.

A solution was the invention of massage devices, which shortened treatment from hours to minutes, removing the need for midwives and increasing a physician’s treatment capacity.

Already at the turn of the century, hydrotherapy devices were available at Bath, and by the mid-19th century, they were popular at many high-profile bathing resorts across Europe and in America.

By 1870, a clockwork-driven vibrator was available for physicians. In 1873, the first electromechanical vibrator was used at an asylum in France for the treatment of hysteria.

Frottage, more commonly known as dry humping, is the act of achieving sexual pleasure with a partner or partners, whether naked or clothed, without penetration. This can include using almost every part of the body, including the buttocks, the breasts, abdomen, thighs, feet, hands, legs, and sexual organs.

Frottage can include mutual genital rubbing, sometimes called genito-genital or GG rubbing and most of the other forms of non-penetrative sex.

There are many reasons a couple may choose frottage. The most common reasons are as a form of foreplay before intercourse or as a method to achieve sexual gratification without the more sexually explicit (and in some circumstances, forbidden) oral, vaginal or anal sexual intercourse.

Often young people will use frottage as an earlier stage of sexual intimacy before more explicit contact is desired, or as a substitute to intercourse to maintain a higher degree of chastity. Also, frottage can be done without getting undressed.

Panties, bras, pantyhose, socks, or stockings can aid in sexual arousal and stimulation. Lap dances often involve clothed frottage. A modern dancing style which involves partners rubbing their clothed bodies on one another is called "grinding," "freaking," or "Sandwich dancing" and is known in the Spanish speaking territories as "perrear" ("dogging").

This term came from Puerto Rico and later became the famous dance for reggaeton. The term frottage derives from the French verb frotter, "to rub."

Mutual masturbation is a sexual act where two or more people stimulate themselves or one another sexually, usually with the hands. This may be done in situations where the participants do not feel ready, physically able, it is socially appropriate, or simply do not wish to have full sexual intercourse, but still wish to have a mutual sexual act.

It is also done as part of the full repertoire of sexual intercourse, where it may be used as an interlude, a form of foreplay or simply as an alternative activity to penetration.

For some, it is the primary sexual activity of choice above all others because it enables the individuals to see face to face and leaves the hands free to caress.

Mutual masturbation can be practiced by those of all sexual orientations. If used as an alternative to penile-vaginal penetration, the aim may be to preserve virginity or to prevent pregnancy. Some may choose it because it achieves sexual satisfaction without actual sex, possibly seeing it as an alternative to casual sex.

The techniques of mutual masturbation resemble those of simple masturbation, with the exception that other persons are involved. The range of participation can be as simple as two participants masturbating in the same room at the same time without any physical contact to a group of people all stimulating one another.

In the case of two participants, one partner may stimulate the other, each partner may stimulate the other, or one may stimulate both themselves and their partner. Mutual masturbation might result in one or more of the partners achieving orgasm.

If no bodily fluids are exchanged (as is common), mutual masturbation is a form of safer sex, and greatly reduces the risk of transmission of sexual diseases. As such it was encouraged among gay men by some safer sex organizations in the wake of the AIDS outbreak of the 1980s, as an alternative to anal or oral sex.

The terms "mutual masturbation" and "circle jerk" are sometimes also used as vulgar
metaphors. They can refer to a situation, often in the workplace, politics or academia, where people are stroking each other's ego without producing anything of value.

Partnered manual genital stroking to reach orgasm and expanded orgasm are practices done with a partner. Both people focus on creating and experiencing an orgasm in one person. Typically in this safe sex partnered masturbation practice, one person lies down, pantless, while his or her partner sits alongside.

The one partner sitting using their hands and fingers (typically with a lubricant) to slowly stroke the clitoris or penis and genitals of the partner. Expanded orgasm as a mutual masturbation technique is said to create orgasm experiences more intense and extensive than what can be described as, or included in the definition of, a regular orgasm.

It includes a range of sensations that include orgasms that are full-bodied, and orgasms that last from a few minutes to many hours.The term was coined in 1995 by Dr. Patricia Taylor.

Non-penetrative sex (also known as outercourse, dry sex, and dry humping) is sexual activity without vaginal, anal, or oral penetration, as opposed to intercourse, anal sex, or oral sex (which may or may not be penetrative).


The terms mutual masturbation and frottage are also used, but with slightly different emphases. NPS and outercourse are rather new terms, which is why such practices are sometimes still called "intercourse".

The term "outercourse" is something of a misnomer, as it contrasts "outer" with "inter" but the "inter" in "intercourse" means "between two people". It does not describe being inside or outside of the body.

It is less likely that bodily fluids will be exchanged, and so outercourse is often considered a practice of safer sex, as well as of birth control . Outercourse in preparation for intercourse can form part of foreplay.

• Axillary intercourse (slang: bagpiping, in reference to the underarm manner in which bagpipes are played; "directing traffic", or "pit-wank", a variant of the term "tit-wank") is a sexual variant where the penis is inserted in the other person's armpit.

• Erotic massage, rubbing all over, with or without oil. May be intensified when combined with deep breathing.

• Handjob, stimulating the penis with the hand.

• Footjob, stimulating genitals with the feet.Frot, penile rubbing.

• Intercrural sex, also known as interfemoral intercourse, which is a type of irrumation, where one partner places a phallic object or penis between the other partner's thighs.

• Intergluteal sex, which is a type of irrumation, where one partner places a phallic object or penis into the other partner's buttock cleavage or gluteal cleft.

• Mammary intercourse, when one partner rubs a phallic object or penis between the partner's breasts.

• Oral stimulation of nipples.

• Sumata, type of stimulation of male genitals popular in Japanese brothels.

• Tribadism, vulval-vulval rubbing, also known as "scissoring.

• Virtual sex, mutual masturbation at a distance with the aid of technology.