Replace those hands with some feet and our guy Bob is in heaven.

Now, I’m a big proponent of personal freedom and that includes sexual kinks. People can do what they wanna do as long as they don’t harm anyone else while they do it — unless it’s some BDSM-type stuff and all parties agree upon an established safe word. After all, none of us can really choose what turns us on. We’re all just slaves to a mysterious combination of hormones and chemicals and electrical currents swirling around in our bodies. Bob Odenkirk needs a well-pedicured female foot delicately wrapped in fancy high heels to get the juices flowing. I need someone slapping me repeatedly in the face with a freshly caught salmon (I know what you’re thinking… Alex, what if you don’t have a freshly caught salmon on-hand? Good question. Tuna also works in a pinch).

Still, I am a man in constant pursuit of knowledge. I never know when Lady Curiosity will pay me a visit, taking me by the hand and leading me down a rabbit hole of Wikipedia pages, medical journals and articles. This time, she tapped me on the shoudler as I gazed upon the tasteful yet erotic contents of the feetandshoelover Instagram page. “What causes a foot fetish?” Lady Curiosity whispered in my ear. Boobs, butts, vaginas, and freshly caught salmon obviously make sense. But feet are kinda weird-looking — no matter how much women try to doll them up with polish, paint, and $5K shoes. What spurs one’s arousal to possibly the least sexual part of the body? Why not knees or ears or even hands? (Sure, some people are into those, too, but there isn’t a large and dedicated elbow fetishist community out there).

So here’s what I dug up. And this is a pretty trippy insight into how the brain works…

The leading theory for why foot fetishization occurs so often has to do with the way the brain sends and receives electrical signals. Each body part is mapped onto a different section of the brain, as demonstrated by this horrific diagram:

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