Sexuality and all its nuances is a magnificent universe to cover, especially when it enters the field of sexual pleasures and fetishes. Some fantasies, such as having sex in a public place and formal clothing, are considered common. Others, such as eschatology, are seen as “disgusting” by many. However, one of the parts of the human body most eroticized by people are the feet and their accessories. According to Sigmund Freud, feet are commonly “sexualized” because they resemble the penis. Now, a study led by neuroscientist Vilanayar Ramachandran, director of the Brain and Cognition Center at the University of California, San Diego, in the United States, brings a scientific character to Freud's thesis. Ramachandran said he solved the mystery while studying the brain dysfunctions that lead to Phantom Limb Syndrome, a condition in which amputees feel as if their missing limbs are still in their bodies and can move them. He found that the syndrome was the result of a “body image map” created by the brain. According to the neuroscientist, some patients with a missing foot were unable to erase the loss of the limb from their body image and sometimes ended up sexualizing the foot. As Ramachandran attests, patients have reported feeling sexual pleasure and even orgasms in their otherwise missing feet. Long before Ramachandran began his work on Phantom Limb Syndrome, he had observed that the areas of the brain associated with genitalia and feet are adjacent to each other in the body image of the brain map. But no one else had put the two together, realizing that foot fetishes could eventually result from the brain connection between the foot and the genitals. Ramachandran also states that we can all have a little of this fixation, even if we don't have this clear perception. With information from the SuperPride website
