At a workshop some time ago…
…a friend shared a story about her small child – two, maybe three years old – who was fascinated by feet.
Whenever guests came over, he would crawl under the table. Curious. Playful. Reaching for toes. Wanting to touch, hold, explore.
Completely innocent.
She told me she felt uneasy about it.
Not because of the child’s behaviour – but because of what others might project onto it. Because in our culture, we rarely allow fascination with the body to remain innocent. We rush to interpret. To sexualise. To label.
But what I saw in her story was something very different.
Attention.
Focused, embodied curiosity.
Devotion before meaning.
Before shame.
Before projection.
Before narrative.
Feet are one of the most neglected parts of our body. We stand on them all day. We hide them in shoes. We rarely tend to them with care. And yet they are our literal grounding – our contact point with the earth.
When someone gives their full, focused attention to your feet, something interesting happens.
The mind quiets.
The body drops.
The nervous system settles.
It is almost impossible to stay in your head when someone is holding your feet with steady, intentional presence.
The body recognises safety.
The weight shifts downward.
You become aware of gravity, breath, warmth.
You come back into yourself.
Over the years, I’ve come to see that many people who are naturally drawn to feet carry a particular capacity: they can focus.
They can sustain attention.
They can meet a part of the body most others overlook – not casually, but with fascination and care.
That kind of attention is not trivial.
It is grounding.
It is regulating.
It is powerful.
When received openly, it brings someone fully into their body – more effectively than words ever could.
We tend to pathologise what we don’t understand.
But sometimes what we call “fetish” is simply focused devotion – attention directed toward the most human, most embodied parts of us.
And perhaps the child under the table still knows something adults tend to forget:
The body is interesting.
Touch is grounding.
Attention is connection.
Before shame teaches us otherwise.
Not everything is about sexuality.
Sometimes it is about presence.