may consist solely in touching feet under the desk." It would
seem that even animals have a certain amount of sexual
consciousness in the feet; I have noticed a male donkey, just
before coitus, bite the feet of his partner.

At the same time it is scarcely usual for the normal lover, in most
civilized countries to-day, to attach primary importance to the foot, such
as he very frequently attaches to the eyes, though the feet play a very
conspicuous part in the work of certain novelists.[15]

In a small but not inconsiderable minority of persons, however, the foot
or the boot becomes the most attractive part of a woman, and in some
morbid cases the woman herself is regarded as a comparatively unimportant
appendage to her feet or her boots. The boots under civilized conditions
much more frequently constitute the sexual symbol than do the feet
themselves; this is not surprising since in ordinary life the feet are not
often seen.

It is usually only under exceptionally favoring conditions that
foot-fetichism occurs, as in the case recorded by Marandon de
Montyel of a doctor who had been brought up in the West Indies.
His mother had been insane and he himself was subject to
obsessions, especially of being incapable of urinating; he had
had nocturnal incontinence of urine in childhood. All the women
of the people in the West Indies go about with naked feet, which
are often beautiful. His puberty evolved under this influence,
and foot-fetichism developed. He especially admired large, fat,
arched feet, with delicate skin and large, regular toes. He
masturbated with images of feet. At 15 he had relations with a
colored chambermaid, but feared to mention his fetichism, though