In world of kink, men pay thousands per hour to worship pretty feet

Mistress Emy is in her allblack leather dominatrix costume as she waits for her client, a banker, in a hotel room in Bengaluru’s central business district. It’s a Friday evening and Emy is quite relaxed for someone about to get into a BDSM (bondage, domination, sadism, masochism) session with a foot fetishist. Foot fetish, or podophilia, is a sexual fascination with feet, and it is the new high among BDSM clients across the country, Emy says.She would know because business takes her across the country.
Puffing away at a Dunhill cigarette, the 30-year-old from Kochi points her smoking hand to a row of ‘pleasure gadgets’ lined up on the table for the banker. There are whips, prods, chains, dog collars and half a dozen pairs of trendy shoes, among other things. She has come prepared for a client who might crave more than her pedicured feet.

A Double Life
The mistresses lead a double life. “In the regular world I’m a normal person with friends and family. But when I get into my dominatrix role I change completely. I come into the mindset to enslave men who begin by worshiping my feet,” says Emy. That’s why the sessions happen in handpicked hotel rooms that are soundproof for obvious reasons. After the session, the dominatrix retreats to the virtual world where she attracts prospects with steamy photographs from previous sessions and images of her well-kept toes and legs on sites like Twitter and Instagram. Bengaluru alone has at least a dozen mistresses specialising in foot fetish, a casual trawl through these sites shows. Emy says she knows at last half a dozen of them and the competition is intense. For some of them it is a full-time profession that is extremely lucrative, while a few have separate work lives and keep this as their clandestine passion. Emy charges Rs 10,000-25,000 for foot worship sessions of 1-2 hours each and, like many other mistresses in the business, claims sex is rarely involved. Payments are made through e-wallets.
Outlet For Repressed Desires
Game developer Khetan (name changed) from Bengaluru says he discovered foot fetishism by chance. “I used to enjoy foot worship videos online and my dream came true when a friend introduced Queen M, a foot and BDSM mistress from Bengaluru, in 2018. I went in for a few sessions and felt reborn after all my pent-up desires were met.”
The 29-year-old fi nds dominatrices on social media and, like many other clients, makes it a point to buy shoes, anklets and other foot embellishments as offerings to their “titillating toes”, over and above the hourly fees.
Bondage And Release
Inside the soundproof rooms, men like Khetan live out fantasies they dare not bring up with their partners or spouses.
They goad the dominatrices to verbally abuse and physically assault them. Some bring along a female partner or choose a “double dominatrix” service. “Even though feet are the ignition point for men, the sessions soon escalate to tying up, beating and other painful methods like pouring wax and glue,” says Rita Domina, a Delhi-based dominatrix.
Emy says she enjoys abusing her clients in Malayalam, so it’s not surprising that most of her clients are from Kerala. Queen M declined to speak to TOI but, according to Khetan, she specialises in Kannada swear words. To stop the session before it gets out of hand, the dominatrices and their clients agree on a “safe word” at the outset. Rita, whose safe word is Rita, says when a client “feels the treatment has become unbearable or the humiliation has gone beyond their expectation, they shout out the word and the session stops.
Ghosts Of The Past
Some of the mistresses have a history of abuse by fathers and husbands, and admit to entering the kinky world of foot worship and enslavement as an act of revenge. But they operate with strict rules: clients must be 21 and above, meet only at a hotel of their choice, offer no intercourse, and must play slave, among others. They say the ‘no sex’ rider is to ensure they don’t lose control over the “slave”.
(Dominatrices are mentioned by their assumed names)