How do I deal with my partner’s foot fetish affecting my self-esteem?

01 · Relationships & Sexuality

Introduction

Your feelings deserve to be taken seriously, and they can change. If you feel reduced to a body part, something is currently out of balance in your shared sexuality. That does not mean he does not desire you. It means you should talk about what you need in order to feel that you are the one he means again. I am writing this text as a man with a fetish, but for you as a female partner.

02 · Relationships & Sexuality

When the fetish becomes competition

Sooner or later, many female partners ask themselves a question that hardly anyone says out loud: Is it actually the foot that turns him on, or is it me? When attention during sex repeatedly turns to your feet, it can feel as though you are only the carrier of a stimulus. As though you had to meet an additional requirement instead of simply being desired.

This feeling is not oversensitivity. It is an understandable response to one part of you suddenly receiving more attention than the rest.

03 · Relationships & Sexuality

Desire and love are two different things

Something that is important to me in my book may help you. I describe sexuality through the image of the Libidose, a kind of container in which everything that arouses a person collects. Love, affection, and inner values are not automatically in it. They are indispensable to a relationship, but they operate according to rules other than those of arousal.

That means: How strongly his fetish is triggered says nothing about how much he loves you. Conversely, his fetish does not measure your worth either. It describes how his arousal works, not whom he means.

And yet the person almost always plays the decisive role. In my experience, a fetish works through a fantasy, and in that fantasy, at best, the woman one loves is at the center. Your feet are not just any feet to him. They belong to you.

04 · Relationships & Sexuality

You may say what you need

You do not have to silently resign yourself to feeling that you are only one part. Tell him what you are missing. A few phrases can make it easier to begin:

I call the last point the 50/50 rule. If he wants you to engage with his fetish, he should be just as open to your fantasies. Good sexuality thrives when both people have space.

• “At the moment, I sometimes feel reduced to my feet, and that does not feel good to me.”
• “I also need moments when it is entirely about me—my gaze, my closeness, my body.”
• “I want us to also have sex in which your fetish plays no role.”
• “It is important to me that my wishes have space too.”

05 · Relationships & Sexuality

He can desire you without the fetish too

Perhaps you fear that without his fetish, he cannot be aroused at all. That is possible, but according to the available research, it is not the rule. In studies by Giselle Rees and Justin Garcia, the majority of people with an object fetish stated that they could be sexually aroused and active even without their fetish object. The participants had volunteered themselves, so the results cannot be generalized.

If your partner tells you that it hardly works for him without the fetish, that is important information. Then it is worth having an open conversation about how both of you can get what you are entitled to, and sometimes seeking the support of couples or sex therapy as well.

06 · Relationships & Sexuality

When it is no longer only about the fetish

There is a difference between a fetish that takes up a lot of space in your relationship and a partner who does not respect you. If he compares you with other women, ignores your objections, or is interested only in your feet and in nothing else about you, then it is no longer about a fetish. It is about the way he treats you. You may name that, and you may set boundaries.

07 · Relationships & Sexuality

What I would like to leave you with

You are more than a body part, and a partner who loves you knows that. Sometimes he only needs a clear reminder of it. Your self-worth does not depend on how well you fit into his fantasy. It depends on you feeling seen in your relationship as a whole person.