Editing Foot binding (section)

===Beauty and erotic appeal===
[[File:Woman with bound feet reclining on chaise lounge, China LCCN2001705601.jpg|thumb|240px|left|Bound feet were considered beautiful and even erotic.]]
Before foot binding was practised in China, admiration for small feet already existed as demonstrated by the [[Tang dynasty]] tale of [[Ye Xian]] written around 850 by [[Duan Chengshi]]. This tale of a girl who lost her shoe and then married a king who sought the owner of the shoe as only her foot was small enough to fit the shoe contains elements of the European story of [[Cinderella]] and is thought to be one of its antecedents.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jruLAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA77 |title=Footbinding: A Jungian Engagement with Chinese Culture and Psychology |author= Shirley See Yan Ma |pages=75&ndash;78 |publisher=Taylor & Francis Ltd |date=4 December 2009 |isbn=9781135190071 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |url=http://journal.oraltradition.org/files/articles/25ii/10_25.2.pdf |title=Asian Origins of Cinderella: The Zhuang Storyteller of Guangxi |journal=Oral Tradition |volume=25 |number=2 |first=Fay |last=Beauchamp |pages=447–496 |access-date=2017-07-25 |archive-date=2017-12-15 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171215135835/http://journal.oraltradition.org/files/articles/25ii/10_25.2.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref> For many, the bound feet were an enhancement to a woman's beauty and made her movement more dainty,<ref>{{cite book|last=Ebrey|first=Patricia Buckley|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vr81YoYK0c4C&pg=PA160 |title='Cambridge Illustrated History of China|year=2010|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=New York|pages=160–161|edition=2nd|isbn=9780521124331}}</ref> and a woman with perfect lotus feet was likely to make a more prestigious marriage.{{sfn|Hershatter|2018|p=47}}{{sfn|Hershatter|2018|p=45}} Even while not much was written on the subject of foot binding prior to the latter half of the 19th&nbsp;century, the writings that were done on this topic, particularly by educated men, frequently alluded to the erotic nature and appeal of bound feet in their poetry.{{sfn|Hershatter|2018|p=45}} The desirability varies with the size of the feet—the perfect bound feet and the most desirable (called {{gloss|golden lotuses}}) would be around 3 Chinese inches (around {{cvt|4|in|cm|order=flip|sigfig=1|disp=or}}) or smaller, while those larger were called {{gloss|silver lotuses}} (4 Chinese inches—around {{cvt|13|cm|in|sigfig=2|disp=or}}) or {{gloss|iron lotuses}} (5 Chinese inches—around {{cvt|17|cm|in|sigfig=2|disp=or}}—or larger, and thus the least desirable for marriage).<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZbJ3DgAAQBAJ&pg=PA59 |title=The Aesthetics of Dress |first= Ian |last=King |page=59 |isbn=9783319543222 |publisher=Springer|date=31 March 2017}}</ref> Therefore people had greater expectations for foot binding brides.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Brown|first1=Melissa J.|last2=Feldman|first2=Marcus W.|last3=Ehrlich|first3=Paul R.|date=2009|title=Sociocultural Epistasis and Cultural Exaptation in Footbinding, Marriage Form, and Religious Practices in Early 20th-Century Taiwan|url= |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America|volume=106|issue=52|pages=22139–22144|doi=10.1073/pnas.0907520106|jstor=40536412|pmid=20080786|issn=0027-8424|pmc=2796906|bibcode=2009PNAS..10622139B|doi-access=free}}</ref> The belief that foot binding made women more desirable to men is widely used as an explanation for the spread and persistence of foot binding.{{sfn|Gates|2014|p=56}}

Some also considered bound feet to be intensely erotic. Some men preferred never to see a woman's bound feet, so they were always concealed within tiny 'lotus shoes' and wrappings. According to [[Robert van Gulik]], the bound feet were also considered the most intimate part of a woman's body. In [[erotic art]] of the Qing period where the genitalia may be shown, the bound feet were never depicted uncovered.{{sfn|van Gulik|1961|pp=218}} Howard Levy, however, suggests that the barely revealed bound foot may also only function as an initial tease.{{sfn|Gates|2014|p=56}}

An effect of the bound feet was the lotus gait, the tiny steps and swaying walk of a woman whose feet had been bound. Women with such deformed feet avoided placing weight on the front of the foot and tended to walk predominantly on their heels.<ref name=slippers /> Walking on bound feet necessitated bending the knees slightly and swaying to maintain proper movement and balance, a dainty walk that was also considered to be erotically attractive to some men.<ref>{{cite book |title=Sexuality Now: Embracing Diversity |author=Janell L. Carroll |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9X8EAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA8 |page=8 |publisher=Cengage Learning |year=2009 |isbn=978-0-495-60499-0 }}</ref> Some men found the smell of the bound feet attractive and some also apparently believed that bound feet would cause layers of folds to develop in the vagina, and that the thighs would become sensuously heavier and the vagina tighter.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xmdKklZM9-kC&pg=PA117 |title=Bodies under Siege: Self-mutilation, Nonsuicidal Self-injury, and Body Modification in Culture and Psychiatry|author= Armando R. Favazza | page=117|publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press|edition= third |date=2 May 2011|isbn=9781421401119 }}</ref> The psychoanalyst [[Sigmund Freud]] considered foot binding to be a "perversion that corresponds to [[foot fetishism]]",<ref>{{cite book|last1=Hacker|first1=Authur|title=China Illustrated|date=2012|publisher=Turtle Publishing|isbn=9781462906901|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=O5JyAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT252}}</ref> and that it appeased male [[castration anxiety]].<ref name=mackie />