"Oh, I'm sorry, I had just assumed..."

"Yeah, no, it's okay, everybody does."
"I think it's because I talk about it so much."

"Yeah... sorry, I just wanted to try to make you happy."

"It's okay. I don't wanna stop."

"Hey."
"Why do you talk about it so much?"

"...I guess it's that whole thing, right?"
"Get in front of it and you get some control over people's reactions. Don't let their assumptions take over."

"Really? It's just a feet kink."

"'It's just a feet kink.' You sound insane."

"It is, though!"

"Don't act like you don't know. Don't act like you don't remember. Fuck, even two years ago we wouldn't be having this conversation."

"That's not very fair to me. I've been calling you little sis all night."

"Yeah, you're right, I'm sorry. It's just..."
"You don't get it. Nobody gets it. Not even the other girls I've met who are into feet get it."
"Not having to be performatively nonchalant and 'not like the others' about it really is that recent a development, though. Good god, especially as a lesbian."
"I wanted to fit in with them so badly. I finally knew what was wrong with me, and I knew that there were other girls like me. And that's all I was, to me: a girl. A girl who likes girls. I didn't think me being trans should matter. Would matter."
"And they said it didn't, but it did. I could tell because of the way they talked about feet."

"Really? That was your first sign?"
"These are cisbians we're talking about, I assume."

"You assume correct. And yes, it was my first sign, actually. This was the Buzzfeed feminism era, they hid their transmisogyny pretty well. That, and when they didn't, I didn't know how to call a spade a spade."
"It was like a sure marker of manhood."
"There was no way a lesbian could like feet. It was almost definitional. If you had a foot fetish you were for sure not one of them, you had to be something else. And I knew I liked girls like girls like girls, so I knew they weren't calling my attraction into question."
"It's 'masculine energy' by any other name. They were signaling that I wasn't a real woman."
"It was stronger evidence of masculinity than having a penis. At least some of them stood up for trans girls."

"Makes more sense now."

"Exactly. And, like, who's gonna stand up for the girl with a foot fetish? Who gives a shit?"
"If I stood up for myself, I'd look like one of those guys who made a big deal of 'coming out' as a brony. We're not exactly marginalized."

"I don't think any kind of kinkshaming is good. Say I saw that and I gave a shit."

"Pfft. Good luck."
"Besides, you don't fit in by changing things."

"Oh."
"Okay, that explains a lot. Yeah."

"...Looking back on it, that sex negativity cis lesbians seem to harbor really hurt me for a long time."
"It wasn't until just before I started hormones that I really began to deconstruct it. But how could it not stick with me? I'm sixteen years old, it won't be safe for me to come out for years. All I have for meeting people like me is the internet, and all the people who are supposed to be like me draw a clear line in the sand."
"'You say you're a woman? Well, that's fine, I suppose. But this is how women engage with sex. How we conceptualize of it, how we desire it, what we are and are not allowed to do or think or say or want during it. You desire sex differently than we do? Now, isn't that curious. I thought you said you were a woman.'"
"The first time I ever got fucked with a strap-on, I insisted that the dildo not be penis-shaped. That's how afraid I was of having my womanhood questioned."

"Jesus."

"Yeah. Never seemed to apply to cis lesbians, though. They got to have dildos with veins and balls. Just me."

"Here's what I'm not getting. If you wanted to fit in so bad, why didn't you just not say anything about it?"
"This all started with how much you talk about your own foot fetish."

"Oh, it was strictly off limits when I was trying to move through the 'lesbian community.' For better and for worse, though, most of the people in my life were and are not lesbians."
"Lesbians think foot fetishes are weird and masculine because people think foot fetishes are weird and masculine. For years they were the ur-fetish."
"There are preferences which it's acceptable for men to have and to discuss among one another while maintaining their masculinity. Big tits, MILFs, hair color. Skin color too, oftentimes, because being racist or acquiescing to racist beliefs is a condition of the upper echelons of masculinity."
"The next step up from there isn't even really a step up, but you know it'll cause a stir when you mention it to the boys. Otherwise conventionally attractive goth girls, stepfamily stuff on PornHub, some BDSM as long as you're the dominant one. 'Chubby' girls, as long as they have wide hips and aren't actually in any way fat."

"Lol, remember Jerma's chat constantly asking him if he eats ass?"

"Yeah, exactly! And beyond that is everything they simply don't talk about unless it's to disavow as freak shit out of hand. Anything submissive, leather, rubber and latex, watersports, and basically anything you and I are into."
"Feet kink was kind of in that category, but unlike most 'extreme' kinks you can't just ignore them. Too many men have foot fetishes, from Tarantino to the guy commenting on your cousin's beach pics on Instagram."
"Patriarchy thrives off of an understanding of sex that isn't so much idealistic as it is downright magical. As if it has this inherent quality about it that sets it apart from any other thing consenting adults can do together which makes it operate under its own special rules."
"I think that's how it became shorthand for 'just kinda creepy.' Especially the internet comments guys."

"Acknowledging that it's men choosing to be creepy would raise too many other questions. Concluding that it's an inherent quality of the fetish is much easier. I get it."
"It's in that no man's land of honesty that men have to distance themselves from, both to remain masculine and to maintain masculinity's dominance."

"Right. And because I was a faggot and my preservation instinct for my masculinity was all wrong, instead of keeping my mouth shut, I went with 'Yeah, I like feet, but I'm chill about it. I'm not weird like those guys - not all of us are weird! Crazy, right? Just keeping you on your toes!'"

"On your toes, huh?"

"Ha ha."
"If my goal was to maintain some semblance of respectable masculinity, it was never going to work. And I think that was my goal, when I couldn't transition."
"But I didn't get it. I said the things I said and wanted others to believe the things I believed because they were, if not 'the truth,' then at least more truthful than what they believed."

"You don't fit in by changing things."
"Like I said, masculinity's not built on honesty. And certainly not on self-critique."
"...I realize I'm feeding into this, but why do you keep talking about masculinity?"
"We're lesbians."

"Because ultimately, cisbians - hell, the majority of TME queers - allow their sexual landscape to be defined by this entire patriarchal negotiation of acceptability."
"It turns out refusing to date men does not give you a window into your internalized misogyny, any more than declaring your atheism gives you an understanding of your internalized Christianity. Most lesbians have not decentered men even a little. That part's extra work."
"They may not have been lesbians, but I had those standards pressed upon me when I was still dating TMEs. Me having a foot fetish was a clear and uncomfortable sign of manhood. Evidently it was a tough thing to reconcile on top of untransitioned me asking to be seen as a woman."

"Yeah. If dating women is all it took to understand misogyny then, well, most men wouldn't be misogynistic. It's like those liberals who go, 'How could you vote for this? Don't you have a wife?' or whatever."
"Like, that's the point, champ."
"Anyways. You think that all of a sudden, public opinion on the humble foot fetish has done a 180?"

"I don't just think so, I watched it happen in real time. Feet are mainstream now. Armpits, too; they both sort of got inducted simultaneously. It's not a complete 180, plus I'm sure cisbians are still wringing their hands over them, but I think they've joined the ranks of goth girls and eating ass in terms of 'acceptability.'"

"What changed?"

"I have absolutely no idea."
"It's not fair."
"But it's not supposed to be, so I shouldn't be surprised. The lines between acceptable and unacceptable are fluid because it's just a pretense for the punishment. If you need to be punished, you are made to be unacceptable, not the other way around.

"..."

"..."

"Do you want to keep going?"

"I don't know."
"It doesn't help that I have trouble voicing my desires..."

"How about this: you have full permission to touch, lick, kiss, fuck my feet however you want. If I have to call orange or red, I promise I won't be mad at you."

"You don't get it."

to be continued. the next part is going to be at least a little horny.

bibliography (all NSFW):