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I’ve never been into feet myself. Never cared about them one way or another. Yet I’ve known people who are deeply into feet, and their enthusiasm has always fascinated me, not because I share the fetish, but because I’ve never understood why people are so quick to judge it. For some reason, whenever people hear about fetishes, the first instinct is to laugh, sneer, or label it “weird.” And that judgment doesn’t just come from everyday conversations. It comes from bigger social forces. Look at how a website like FetLife gets treated. Some view it as a dark, depraved corner of the internet, a playground for deviance. But for those inside the community, it’s simply a social hub, a place where people who share certain interests can connect, talk, and find partners who respect boundaries.

The disconnect is striking: outsiders see “perversion,” while insiders see “community.” That gap, between how sexuality is expressed versus how it’s judged, is what I want to explore here. Because once you strip away the shame and stereotypes, what you’re left with is something pretty simple: human beings trying to understand themselves and connect with others. The first question skeptics always ask is: “Why would anyone like that?” Take feet as the classic example. For those who have a fetish, the attraction is just as natural as someone else being into redheads, tall people, or muscular bodies. But because feet don’t fit neatly into mainstream “sexual categories,” people assume something must be broken or wrong.

For decades, psychologists debated whether fetishes came from trauma, early exposure, or learned association. There are still theories that suggest childhood experiences can shape adult preferences, but there’s no hard rule. Millions of people enjoy kink or fetish play without ever experiencing trauma. Others develop unique desires simply because of how their brains process reward, novelty, and arousal. The bigger point is this: even if a desire did originate in a person’s history, that doesn’t make it invalid, dangerous, or immoral. It just makes it human. And when two (or more) consenting adults agree on a dynamic — whether that’s worshipping feet, role-playing, or group play — then it’s as valid as any other form of intimacy. So why do so many outsiders rush to demonize it? The answer often circles back to religion. Throughout history, religious traditions have held deep suspicions about the body, desire, and pleasure. In Christianity, for example, sexuality outside of procreation was often painted as sinful or corrupting. This mindset created an “acceptable” box for sexual behavior (monogamous, heterosexual, missionary-position, marriage-only) and condemned everything outside it as deviance.

Even today, many religious voices frame sexuality in moral terms. Kinks, fetishes, homosexuality, or polyamory are described not as preferences but as sins. And that moral judgment carries weight, shaping not only personal shame but also cultural stigma. Here’s the irony: the more strictly sexuality is repressed, the more it tends to leak out in secret. Studies have shown that U.S. regions with the highest religious fanatacism — the Bible Belt, for example — also have some of the highest rates of pornography consumption. Countries with strict sexual codes, like India, often rank among the highest in global porn viewership. And time and time again, we see scandals within the church — from the Catholic Church abuse crisis to evangelical pastors exposed in affairs, sex work, or even child exploitation cases. The pattern raises a troubling question: does repressing desire actually breed harm? Carl Jung, the famous psychologist, once described the “shadow self” — the part of us that holds the impulses, thoughts, and desires we suppress or deny. When ignored, the shadow doesn’t disappear. It festers. It grows distorted. And eventually, it finds ways to erupt, often destructively.

Religious repression works the same way. When people are taught to hate their own bodies, deny their natural urges, and live in constant shame, those desires don’t vanish. They just move underground. Sometimes, that repression leads to secrecy and hypocrisy: the pastor preaching against “sexual immorality” while watching porn at night. Sometimes, it leads to dangerous extremes: abuse, coercion, or criminal behavior. Now, to be clear: not every religious person is repressed, and not every repressed person turns harmful. But the trend is undeniable: the more sexuality is stigmatized, the more likely it is to appear in unhealthy, destructive ways. Meanwhile, communities that embrace open conversation, education, and consent — like kink or swinger circles — often report safer, more communicative sexual practices than so-called “vanilla” groups. Why? Because repression breeds secrecy, but openness breeds responsibility. One of the more fascinating dynamics I’ve noticed is how many religiously raised people end up in the swinger or kink community. At first glance, it feels like a contradiction. How can someone go from Sunday sermons about chastity to Saturday nights at a play party? But when you look deeper, it makes sense. Years of repression create a build-up. Once someone breaks free from those chains, the pendulum often swings hard in the opposite direction. What was once forbidden suddenly becomes intoxicating. And because communities like swinging or FetLife emphasize consent, boundaries, and communication, they offer something that religious spaces often lack: freedom without shame.

In fact, I’d argue that many people in the swinger community aren’t “depraved” at all. They’re simply people who were told for years that their desires made them sinful, and they finally found a space where those desires could exist without condemnation. It’s not about excess. It’s about relief. At the heart of all this is the dangerous myth of “normal.” Religion, media, and culture have all tried to define what “normal” sex looks like. For some, it’s missionary position, in marriage, once a week. For others, it’s porn-star passion, multiple times a day. Both can be normal. Neither is “the standard.” The truth is that sexuality is a spectrum. Some people are vanilla, some kinky. Some monogamous, some polyamorous. Some into feet, others into rope, others into nothing at all. Normal isn’t one thing. Normal is whatever is consensual, safe, and fulfilling for the people involved.

The tragedy is that people often destroy themselves trying to fit into someone else’s definition of normal. And when religion enforces that definition with guilt and fear, the damage can last a lifetime. So where do we go from here? The answer is not to abolish religion or mock faith. Spirituality has value for many people. The answer is to bridge the gap between faith and freedom — to help people see that sexuality and morality don’t have to be enemies. And the bridge is built on two pillars: consent and education. Consent means that no matter what someone is into — vanilla, kink, group play, fetishes, roleplay — it’s valid as long as everyone involved is informed, willing, and free to say no. Education means teaching people that their desires are not sinful, but natural. It means explaining how repression can harm, how communication prevents abuse, and how diversity in sexuality is part of the human experience.

The communities that thrive are the ones that talk openly about boundaries, risks, and safety. They don’t demonize desire; they normalize responsibility. And if there’s one lesson society desperately needs, it’s that shame never made anyone healthier. Acceptance, dialogue, and consent do. Let’s be honest: religion has always had a complicated relationship with sex. On the one hand, churches preach purity, chastity, and restraint. On the other hand, the same communities often grapple with hidden struggles, scandals, and hypocrisy.

Take the Bible Belt in the United States. This region consistently reports some of the highest levels of religiosity — church attendance, prayer, and public displays of faith. Yet studies of online behavior have revealed that these same regions consume some of the highest amounts of online pornography per capita. In fact, Utah — a state with a strong religious culture — has repeatedly ranked at the top of porn subscription and viewership charts. Internationally, you see similar patterns. Countries like India, where conservative traditions and taboos around sex run deep, often rank among the largest consumers of pornography. The same is true in parts of the Middle East, where access to adult material is restricted yet VPNs flourish. This isn’t a coincidence. It’s repression at work. When desire is framed as sin, people don’t lose the desire. They just learn to hide it.

And when hiding isn’t enough, some people cross darker lines. Consider the Catholic Church abuse crisis, where thousands of children were victimized by priests who had pledged celibacy. Or the endless stream of evangelical pastors caught in affairs, sex work scandals, or worse. These aren’t just personal failings. They’re symptoms of a larger system that demands perfection, denies humanity, and punishes desire until it mutates.

To make this real, I’ll share a personal story. For me, I’ve always enjoyed the idea of multiple women at the same time. Group play has been something that excites me, though I don’t center my entire identity around it. There’s something thrilling about the energy, the openness, and the celebration of pleasure with more than one partner. Now, if I had grown up in a world where that was treated as shameful or sinful, I might have buried that interest, lied about it, or carried guilt for even thinking about it. But I didn’t. I explored it openly and safely with partners who were just as into it, and it became a positive part of my sexual journey.

What’s the difference between that story and the tragic stories we hear from religious scandals? Consent. Openness. Communication.

One path breeds secrecy, shame, and potential harm. The other path creates freedom, honesty, and connection.

That’s why I share this — not because my kink is more important than anyone else’s, but because it shows how desires, when handled with honesty and consent, don’t destroy lives. They enrich them.

The consequences of repression aren’t just sexual. They’re psychological.

Studies have consistently linked sexual shame to higher rates of depression, anxiety, and even suicidal ideation. People who feel that their desires are wrong or sinful often internalize self-hatred. They may avoid relationships, sabotage intimacy, or seek unhealthy outlets.

In contrast, people who embrace their sexuality — whatever it looks like — often report higher levels of confidence, satisfaction, and emotional health.

This isn’t just about fetishes or kink. It’s about all sexual expression. From LGBTQ+ identities to polyamory to asexuality, people thrive when they are accepted and falter when they are condemned.

Religion, unfortunately, has too often stood on the side of condemnation. And that condemnation has left deep scars.

But here’s the key: it doesn’t have to be that way.

Faith and sexuality don’t have to be enemies. Some progressive religious communities have already begun to shift the conversation. They teach that sexuality is a gift, not a curse. They emphasize love, consent, and respect as the true moral standards, rather than rigid codes of purity.

Imagine if more faith leaders spoke openly about desire, consent, and sexual education. Imagine if instead of condemning kink or fetish, they taught that what matters most is how people treat one another. Imagine if “sin” wasn’t defined by who you sleep with, but by whether you harm, manipulate, or abuse.

That’s the bridge: recognizing that morality isn’t about repressing desire. It’s about elevating consent.

This brings us back to spaces like FetLife. Outsiders often see them as dens of perversion. But step inside, and you’ll find a surprisingly wholesome reality: forums on consent, groups dedicated to safety, and communities built around trust.

Yes, people share their fantasies, fetishes, and kinks. But they also emphasize communication, aftercare, and respect. In many ways, kink communities model healthier sexual behavior than mainstream culture, where hookup apps often ignore conversations about boundaries entirely.

The lesson here is that what looks “taboo” from the outside may actually be more responsible on the inside.

If we want to move forward as a society, the solution isn’t more shame. It’s more education.

• Teach kids early about consent, boundaries, and respect.
• Normalize conversations about desire, rather than hiding them.
• Include diverse perspectives in sex education — not just reproduction, but pleasure, orientation, and identity.
• Show that sexual expression comes in many forms, and none of them are inherently wrong if consent is present.

Education creates awareness. Awareness reduces fear. And when people stop fearing what they don’t understand, acceptance grows.

At the end of the day, here’s what it comes down to:

Every one of us has desires. Some simple, some complex. Some mainstream, some niche. Some we share openly, some we keep private.

But no matter what those desires are, they don’t make us monsters. They make us human.

Religion has often tried to divide the world into pure versus sinful, normal versus deviant. But those binaries don’t hold up in reality. The truth is far more beautiful: human sexuality is diverse, messy, and endlessly creative.

We don’t need to fear that. We don’t need to repress it. We don’t need to demonize those whose desires differ from ours.

What we do need is responsibility. Consent. Communication. Respect.

If we can center those values, then whether someone is into vanilla romance, polyamory, kink, fetishes, or group play doesn’t matter. Because at the heart of it all, we’re just people — seeking connection, pleasure, and love in the ways that feel right to us.

And that’s nothing to be ashamed of.