What is it about feet?

Published on Saturday 6 February 2010 18:59

EVERY morning, Gemma Howorth gives her feet an intensive work-out. First she uses a pumice stone to take all the rough skin off the heels, then she pushes back the cuticles on the nails, before massaging them all over with almond oil.

A foot model, whose polished digits have featured in many TV commercials and fashion spreads, she can't wear the strappy sandals she poses in when she's out and about in case someone inadvertently steps on them. "I wear Uggs most of the time, even in summer," says Howorth, who set up Body London, an agency which specialises in body parts for the camera. "People think it's strange to worry so much, but one girl lost a toenail and she couldn't work for six months. It's our livelihood that's at stake."

Body London's website features a gallery of feet photos – some clad in sparkly thongs and nail polish, some au naturel – which ably demonstrate why, for many, feet are a symbol of beauty.

Considering they are just another part of the human body, and often a grubby and smelly one, feet have always been a source of fascination, playing a significant role in many religions – Christianity, Islam, Judaism – as well as being closely associated with sexuality.

The iconic image from The Graduate features a lustful Dustin Hoffman staring at Anne Bancroft's stocking soles. In Pulp Fiction (directed by foot fetishist Quentin Tarantino), Samuel L Jackson and John Travolta spend one scene discussing whether or not massaging the foot of another man's wife is a form of infidelity.

Yet not everyone loves feet. Indeed for some, the mere sight of a bare foot is enough to make them feel queasy. Last week, video maker David Richards was banned from his local Tesco in Leicestershire for shopping without shoes on the grounds that it was unhygienic. "Overwhelmingly, customers would like other customers to wear shoes in a food store – and we don't think that's an unreasonable request," a spokesman said.

The sight last week of Victoria Beckham's bunions – the legacy of years of wearing high-heeled shoes – also served as a reminder that tootsies can be as much of a turn-off as a turn-on. So great is some people's distaste for them, there is even a Facebook page – I Hate Feet – dedicated to podophobia. "I don't like people touching my feet. I don't like bare feet. I don't like people's feet touching me. And I hate huge disgusting feet. I gag if they're anywhere near me," reads one post.

So why has a part of the body which exists to carry us from one place to another taken on a significance beyond its practical function? And what is it about feet that inspires such extreme, polarised, and often irrational responses?

THE tendency to invest feet with cultural significance is neither new nor confined to western society. In China – for 1,000 years until it was banned in 1911 – women had their feet bound. From the age of four, girls' feet would be soaked in hot water, their toes turned under and the arches of the foot broken as the foot was held straight with the leg.

Opinions are divided as to the purpose of the exercise: some say it was to keep women subservient; some that it was a sign of status (as those with bound feet couldn't work). But at least in part, tiny feet were seen to be desirable. "The tradition began because of a poem which described a girl with feet so tiny she could dance on a lotus blossom," says psychologist Cynthia McVey, of Caledonia University. "Because the toes had been turned under and bones broken, the feet themselves would have been ugly, but they were put in tiny little satin slippers."

In some cultures, baring your feet is a sign of respect: Muslims remove their shoes before entering a mosque; orthodox Jews do not wear leather shoes for Shiva (a seven-day period of mourning) and in Christianity, the washing and anointing of feet is seen as an act of humility, gratitude and love. At the same time – as the man who threw his shoe at George Bush highlighted – taking off your footwear and hurling it at someone – is the ultimate gesture of contempt.

In popular culture, too, feet have had a big influence. Whether its Sandy Shaw singing shoeless or Peggy Hill (from King Of The Hill) who has exceptionally large feet – being tricked into posing for a foot fetish website – the fascination seems universal.

Why anyone should be intrigued to the point of sexual obsession is a subject of great debate among psychologists. Some take a Freudian stance, insisting it stems from spending so much time playing at their mothers' feet as babies, while neurologist Vilayanur S Ramachandran has suggested that foot fetishism is caused by the feet and the genitals occupying adjacent areas of the somatosensory cortex. It has also been pointed out that an increase in foot fetishism has coincided with epidemics of STDs such as gonorrhoea, syphilis and Aids, which suggests foot play was being seen as a safe-sex alternative.

When they're not being used as a mode of transportation, or a sexual stimulus, feet are a means of non-verbal communication. A recent study showed the way people move their feet reveals their feelings.

Professor Geoffrey Beattie, at the University of Manchester, said women tended to move their feet towards a man if they found him attractive. An unnatural amount of foot movement signalled dishonesty in both sexes, while men tended to move their feet more when nervous.

"While people might know what their facial expression or hands might be imparting, they will often have no idea whether their feet are moving or the messages their feet are sending out. The secret language of feet can reveal a great deal about our personality, what we think of the person we're talking to and even our emotional and psychological state," said Beattie, who was the resident psychologist on all nine Big Brother series.

"You can see why feet might disgust some people," says McVey. "People have different shapes of toe, some of them are hairy and because they always in shoes they get sweaty and are often smelly, although, to be fair to the man in Tesco, they're probably more hygienic than shoes as you tend to wipe them more often.

"As far as the attraction part goes, the Freudian theory is interesting, although it might apply to shoes more than the feet .

"Women too are attracted to shoes because they make their feet look dainty and pointy – and then it all connects to fashion and celebrity: one day kitten heels will be in and the next day platforms.

"When it comes to feet themselves, it's not so obvious, but when you think about it, you don't see bare feet very often.

"If you're on the tube, you may see a cleavage or a skirt that shows a girl's pants, but you're unlikely to see her bare feet... it's almost as if it's the last bastion of nudity."

The sight of a naked foot might become a lot more common if a US fad spreads across the Atlantic. More than 50 years after the Ethiopian Olympic gold medallist Abebe Bikila won his first marathon, barefoot and 25 years after Zola Budd broke the world record in the women's 5,000 metres, also barefoot, running without shoes is becoming something of a phenomenon on the US west coast.

Inspired by Ken Bob Saxton, from California, who has completed more than 70 marathons unshod, advocates insist running in bare feet is better for you than wearing trainers.

Dismissed by some podiatrists, who say running barefoot has risks, especially for the 50 per cent of the population who have abnormalities in their foot structure, the campaigners' point of view is nevertheless gaining credence, with Dr Daniel Lieberman, professor of biological anthropology at Harvard University, saying: "A lot of foot and knee injuries currently plaguing us are caused by people running with shoes that actually make our feet weak, cause us to over-pronate (rotate the ankle) and give us knee problems."

This opinion will resonate with Tesco outcast David Richards who gave up shoes seven years ago because he had a limp.

"I took my shoes off, cured my limp, and just didn't put my shoes back on," said Richards, who goes without shoes even when wearing a dinner suit, but sometimes sprays his feet gold for special occasions. "The only time I have worn shoes recently was during the cold snap, but I did so very reluctantly. But I have developed something of a leather sole, and my feet are now so tough you could stub a cigarette out on them."

The barefoot movement is already having an impact on the $20bn (13bn) sports shoe industry, which, despite sneering, has responded by producing new products. Nike, which virtually invented the modern trainer, has launched its own "barefoot" version, the Nike Free – which simulates running in bare feet – to compete with the popular Vibram Fivefingers foot glove.

Elsewhere, the liberation of going barefoot is being recognised with sensory parks designed especially for those who like to walk around unshod. Already popular in Europe, the UK's first opened in Trentham Gardens in a wooded area of the Italian gardens in Trentham estate, Stoke-on-Trent. It consists of a half-a-mile trail with a variety of surfaces to stimulate bare feet and has been touted as providing a natural and inexpensive alternative to reflexology. The trail is proving popular, suggesting that we are not as averse to baring our soles as we once were.

Tesco might soon find itself out of step with its trendier customers. Perhaps in the future, going shopping sans shoes will not only be tolerated, it will be de rigueur.

Record breakers

BIGGEST FEET: Actor Matthew McGrory had the biggest shoe size ever recorded – a size 29. He died in 2005, aged 32.

MOST TOES: Both Pranamya Menaria and Devendra Harne were born with 13 toes and 12 fingers in India 1995, as a result of the conditions Polydactyly and Syndactyly.

WORLD'S SMELLIEST: In 1993, Dave Hargrave from Guelph, Canada, won a New York competition to find the World's Smelliest Socks. His feet ponged so much that even dogs wouldn't go near them.

LONGEST TOENAILS: In 1991, the combined length of Californian Louise Hollis's toenails was 87 inches making each nail approximately six inches long.

WEBBED FEET: Actor Ashton Kutcher showed his webbed feet on Friday Night With Jonathan Ross.