The tendency, which we thus find to be normal at some earlier periods of
civilization, to insist on the sexual symbolism of the feminine foot or
its coverings, and to regard them as a special sexual fascination, is not
without significance for the interpretation of the sporadic manifestations
of foot-fetichism among ourselves. Eccentric as foot-fetichism may appear
to us, it is simply the re-emergence, by a pseudo-atavism or arrest of
development, of a mental or emotional impulse which was probably
experienced by our forefathers, and is often traceable among young
children to-day.[19] The occasional reappearance of this bygone impulse
and the stability which it may acquire are thus conditioned by the
sensitive reaction of an abnormally nervous and usually precocious
organism to influences which, among the average and ordinary population of
Europe to-day, are either never felt, or quickly outgrown, or very
strictly subordinated in the highly complex crystallizations which the
course of love and the process of tumescence create within us.
It may be added that this is by no means true of foot-fetichism
only. In some other fetichisms a seemingly congenital
predisposition is even more marked.
Pages:
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70