Only the Toes Knows

Fascinating little crime story by Julia Reischel in Boston's Weekly Dig. A frightening creep (described as wearing "torn designer jeans and a white sweater that went down to his knees) made rounds in the city getting shopgirls to show him their feet while he snapped out a camera. And the shattered innocents who complied with him aren't getting much from the cops because the law doesn't know quite what to do with foot fetishists.

Feet, as the law sees it, just aren't a sexual zone… unfortunately for the Harvard Square fetishist's two victims, feet aren't on the assault side of that line. You can chalk this blind spot in the law up to the Bay State's fundamental prudishness about kink, and it cuts both ways for the fetish community. On the one hand, says Princess Kali, the local organizer of New England's premier foot fetish event, Footnight, it protects responsible foot fetishists—the kind that don't force themselves upon strangers—from persecution.

…

On the flip side, because the law doesn't acknowledge the existence of their very real sexual feelings about feet, foot fetishists can't be open about their particular proclivities. For foot fetishists, there's no clear boundary between permissible ogling and assault as there is with, say, a T&A man.

Obscure headline reference explained here.