Bretonne frequently referred to this point,
and he gave a number of reasons for the attractiveness of high
heels: (1) They are unlike men's boots and, therefore, have a
sexual fascination; (2) they make the leg and foot look more
charming; (3) they give a less bold and more sylph-like character
to the walk; (4) they keep the feet clean. (Restif de la
Bretonne, _Nuits de Paris_, vol. v, quoted in Preface to his _Mes
Inscriptions_, p. ciii.) It is doubtless the first reason--the
fact that high heels are a kind of secondary sexual
character--which is most generally potent in this attraction.

The foregoing history, while it very distinctly brings before us a case of
erotic symbolism, is not strictly an example of shoe-fetichism. The
symbolism is more complex. The focus of beauty in a desirable woman is
transferred and concentrated in the region below the knee; in that sense
we have foot-fetichism. But the act of coitus itself is also symbolically
transferred. Not only has the foot become the symbol of the vulva, but
trampling has become the symbol of coitus; intercourse takes place
symbolically _per pedem_. It is a result of this symbolization of the foot
and of trampling that all acts of treading take on a new and symbolical
sexual charm. The element of masochism--of pleasure in being a woman's
slave--is a parasitic growth; that is to say, it is not founded in the
subject's constitution, but chances to have found a favorable soil in the
special circumstances under which his sexual life developed. It is not
primary, but secondary, and remains an unimportant and merely occasional
element.

It may be instructive to bring forward for comparison a case in which also
we have a symbolism involving boot-fetichism, but extending beyond it. In
this case there is a basis of inversion (as is not infrequent in erotic
symbolisms), but from the present point of view the psychological
significance of the case remains the same.

A.N., aged 29, unmarried, healthy, though not robust, and without
any known hereditary taint. Has followed various avocations
without taking great interest in them, but has shown some
literary ability.

"I am an Englishman," his own narrative runs, "the third of three
children. At my birth my father was 41 and my mother 34. My
mother died of cancer when I was 15. My father is still alive, a
reserved man, who still nurses his sorrow for his wi