It seems that, with the dearth of really good resources out there for SOLE, what would really have been helpful would have been if his question were elevated to a forum read by a whole lot of kinksters of all stripes and moderated by someone with a massive amount of generalist knowledge in sex advice. Then, the advice columnist could have given him a little support and some good generalist advice, followed by a trove of responses from people with more specialist experience and good ideas, vetted for quality by the columnist.

Of course service like that would never come free.

"They fuckin love that"

How do you know that "they" all do, LW? Personal experience, Wikipedia, or a dangerous speculation on you part?

Let me guess: SISF describes him/herself as a "pansexual."

Oh, and for all you tickling foot pervs: read Yenny comics by David Alvarez. He's one of you.

SISF reminds me of when I first started getting on internet message boards and you couldn't go two posts without someone going "ANECDOTAL REFERENCE!" I miss those days.

I remember thinking that the original letter was kind of silly to begin with. There's the feet...there's the lover...shake well and follow the noises and the vibe.

A lot of times I think all this endless discussion and clicky, identity-politcs-y, stuff is what's making people so self conscious to begin with. The problem never seems to be doing it "right" as in getting someone off, it has to be getting someone off PLUS pleasing the crowd you're perceiving yourself as now entering. That's a bit much to deal with, and they always bring little constellations with them so soon it's about everything EXCEPT enjoying the goddamn act.

Do what's hot. Fetishes are obviously more specific, but it's just a context....so now do what's hot within that context. If it doesn't work, do something else until it does.

Good partners understand that sometimes there's a process and a learning curve involved. Bad lovers don't. Don't play with bad lovers.

A) given the number of times you've consulted and quoted experts at various aspects of sex & fetishism, I'd say the writer hasn't read your column very long

B) The writer is also assuming that the sexy sexy sex times that they had apply to EVERYBODY ELSE obviously.

Now that we're on day 2 of the foot-fetish SLOTTD, I feel compelled to ask: are there any female fetishists out there, or is this an exclusively (or predominantly) male thing?

Gawd, this letter writer sure comes off like a smug, self-satisfied, self-congratulatory asshole. The foot-fetish tips may be spot on, but does he/she have to be such a dick about it?

interestingly enough, an ex of mine had dated someone with a foot fetish (that went over well enough) who eventually confessed to a tickle fetish (which was not well received).

But I think Dan's original advice was well laid out: they're into feet, but *how* they're into feet depends on the person.

I think it's adorable how the first LW there says Dan's advice is no good because it probably only came from reading some articles and then attempts to generalize his personal experience with a single foot fetishist to everyone who will ever fuck a foot fetishist ever.

SISF, your experience ain't universal. That's specifically why Dan kept his advice general and suggested figuring things out with that partner instead of trying to apply what other people want.

Dan is a genius. He runs the self-congratulatory asshole's comments with his own sane and sensible reply, which makes him look way more intelligent and mature than SISF. Some days, the best way to make somebody look bad is to let them speak for themselves. :-)

SISF sounds like a 20-year-old newly-"enlightened" smug stick-up-the-ass pain.

I mean, really? You gotta bracket your contribution to a dialogue with sneering disdain? You got some more growing up to do, boy.

Psh. I remember when Dan neglected to mention how my girlfriend really loves this blue shirt that I wear. I never fail to get laid when I wear it, and yet I've never heard Dan mention it when he gives people advice on getting laid. Shows how much he knows about what women like!

I dated a guy with a foot fetish and it was pretty easy to find things to satisfy him, and none of it ever involved his eye sockets. The foot job is a good one, but also if your heights match up your feet can be at genital level during oral sex. If you sit back on the couch and he crouches in front of you to perform oral sex, you can bring your feet together (think feet together, knees apart, like a frog) to play with his balls with your toes or whatever. It's great reciprocity.

@6--that is an excellent question. I think that it's perceived as a man thing, but I don't think it's exclusively a man thing. My husband has a bit of a foot fetish--he likes stockinged feet stroking his face during sex, or for me to pinch his nipples with my toes, there's some occasional toe sucking. It doesn't do much for me, except that it tickles. However, I have a real thing for men's feet--long bony feet do something for me, but it's a visual thing. Although really smooth skin on the tops of a man's feet against the soles of my feet during sex makes me just about insane, in a very good way. I'm not sure that qualifies as a fetish though.

SISF - they fact they you refer to foot fetishists like they're a hivemind and equate your experience with one of them to ALL of them ("They fuckin love that." Really? I know foot fetishists who don't want feet on their eye sockets.), tells us a lot about your level of experience. Which is very little.

Do we know that SISF is a guy?

food + sex = stupid

Re-reading what I just posted, it seems I did criticize SISF, even though I said I wouldn't. I feel vaguely ashamed.

All I'm going to say is, if you're going to accuse someone of having given dangerous advice, it's a good thing to specify what it was and why it was dangerous.... Writing 101 and all that.

*rolls eyes*

SISF is pretty obviously new to Savage Love. I've only been reading for about 2 years or so but even I recognize that Dan has been at this since I was but a wee pup and knows his shit. He's been around the block enough times to know so this person is just running their mouth (or... keyboard... I guess.) without thinking.

@7: Dan has apparently gotten us all to stop using "pussy" as a pejorative meaning "weak person", but it now occurs to me that there's no taboo against using "dick" to mean "jerk" (e.g., Dan's recent "Dicks be Dicks"). If we're all about equality, don't we need to stop using "dick" as a pejorative too?

And Sylvester, I'm not trying to call you out personally; it's just that your comment was the one that made me think of this.

Personally I'm tickled that SISF calls Dan out for giving "dangerous" advice and then smugly hands out advice whose potential dangerosity is far more clear than any in Dan's advice. SISF, didn't your mother ever tell you don't do that with your feet, you'll poke someone's eye out?

@22, I've wondered about that. What do you think Dan's opinion is? I'm curious.

I'm curious why only (or predominantly) men seem to be into feet.

@2: Yeah, that guy's universalizing his own experience with foot play to everyone into feet. WTF?

@22: It's not about equality (a naive Liberal, in the sense of Classical Liberalism, concept), because "equality" is a fiction, since we all live in slightly different social (cultural, economic, personal, etc.) circumstances, and therefore the same or similar acts impact us all differently. It's about minimizing harm in terms of observable (though not necessarily physical) and/or predictable impact. The denigrating use of "pussy" functions as part of a social system that devalues and disempowers women. No such social system exists for men, so using "dick" as a pejorative doesn't impact men as a group in the same way that using "pussy" impacts women.

@26, well said, but I think I actually disagree with your final point. I do think men are devalued and disempowered if they try to break outside the norms of modern masculinity. And, yes, I think "he's such a dick" is part of that -- the word makes it normal for men to be seen as tough jerks, not a gender to be trusted with raising children, say. Though I can't say I've changed my vocabulary to accord better with my gender politics.

@26, I have to agree with EricaP on that, since it does seem to me that using words like 'dick' pejoratively is in principle as likely to help keep men within the 'safe' boundaries of traditional masculinity as using 'pussy' pejoratively.

But I would also add that claims like the one you made -- 'a social system that devalues and disempowers women' -- oftentimes mask more of what is really going on in the salad of stereotypes in our culture than actually reveal something. I think that if we had a really good understanding of how society works we'd see that habits like using 'pussy' or 'dick' pejoratively have actually much less to do with disempowering women or promoting stereotypical masculinity in society than many other things that look at first totally unrelated.

The etymologist in me also wants to point out that use of 'pussy' to mean 'coward, wimp, weak' does not come from its use to mean 'vagina', since 'pussy' = 'weak' antedates 'pussy' = 'vagina' by quite a long time, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. It seems that 'pussy' = 'weak' actually is a metaphor based on 'pussy' = 'little cat, kitten' (say, 'he's not a tiger, he's just a pussy') and never had anything to do with female genitalia. (Of course, nowadays people are convinced that it does, which is also relevant for the future evolution of this term.)

Am I the only one who doesn't want anything touching my eye sockets, ever?

Am I the only one who thinks that if you enjoy licking chocolate off feet it's more likely you have a chocolate addiction than a foot fetish? I mean, if you like feet, why cover yummy feet with yucky chocolate?

And finally, I think the ball is really in the court of the shy foot fetishist whose boyfriend wrote in a while back. If he can't say what he likes, he really doesn't deserve to have it happen. It's not up to his boyfriend, Dan Savage, hundreds of well-meaning strangers (and one smug douche) to figure out what he likes so he doesn't have to say it.