Last year something happened to me that I never would have expected. I posted about it on Facebook and the reactions I got from friends and followers surprised me.
I was working at Starbucks on a Friday afternoon when a cute frat boy-type guy sat down at the next table. We did the look-and-then-look-away-then-look-then-smile flirting thing a couple of times. I was wearing flip flops and I pushed one off and sat on my foot with my bare foot facing him.
Suddenly he looked over and said, “This is going to sound weird, but would you mind not sitting like that? I have a foot fetish and you’re driving me nuts since I can see the bottom of your foot.” Then he shifted in his seat and I could see he had an erection. I put my flip flop back on.
About a half hour later he asked me to watch his stuff. He got my attention by slipping his thumb between my sole and flip flop and squeezing my foot. When he came back I could tell he’d adjusted his bulge but he was still aroused. About 5-10 minutes later he suddenly stood up, touched my foot, said, “I gotta go. Maybe I’ll see you later,” and I could see his stuff twitch after he touched my foot again.
How about we take this to the next level?
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He practically ran out the door. I didn’t try to stop him.
As you can imagine, the story quickly got tons of likes and comments, but what intrigued me most was the chasm between the responses of men compared to the women who commented. I said it was a creepy experience being objectified like that and folks had strong opinions on whether or not I should consider it creepy or complimentary.
Ninety-nine percent of the men who responded told me I was crazy for not hooking up with the guy. From “Jees, be grateful someone still cruises you!” to “Not weird at all. I would love that kind of attention, especially by a cute frat guy half my age,” the men seemed to think I was the strange one for finding the experience creepy.
The women, however, seemed to agree with me that it was similar to a stranger rubbing their junk against you on public transportation. He told me he found me/my feet sexually arousing but then followed that up with nonconsensual sexual touching; it may not have been sexual for me, but it obviously was for him.
Plus, he opened the conversation with a request that I change how I was sitting because it was turning him on. Isn’t that like telling a woman her skirt is so short her rapist couldn’t resist? Especially since he touched my feet shortly thereafter — multiple times?
“I agree it’s kind of creepy. Not that he found you or specifically your feet attractive, but that you seemed to be reduced to an object in his game. I doubt that’s what he intended. But being objectified is by it’s nature creepy,” said one female commenter.
“Is that a difference between men and women or are women more sensitive to being seen as objects since we are seen as objects on numerous levels in our culture?” Jennifer Litton Tidd asked. “See, for me, because many men dismiss me as merely a baby machine, when I feel like an object and not a complete human, it bothers me. Men, who generally aren’t dismissed as objects in our culture, seem fine with it.”
Many men hear women complain about being objectified or sexually harassed and assume they are blowing things out of proportion — just as they did on my post. But this incident highlights a stark difference between how some people see the same situation very differently simply based on their lived experiences.
“The whole thing did make me think a bit about my own knee-jerk feminism a bit. Maybe when some lounge lizard is making lewd remarks on a barstool, I should just be flattered and not feel it’s a sexist attack,” Litton Tidd wrote in a later email. “It was very interesting for me to read men talking about men like I usually hear men, who I dismiss as sexist, talking about women.”
A week later, the same guy came back to Starbucks while I was working there again. He saw me and bolted for the door without sitting down. A couple of hours later, he came back and came up to me to apologize for “being weird” and said he’s seen me there often. (I only noticed him the day he groped my foot!) He said he felt bad and had come back just to see if I was there so he could apologize.
I accepted graciously, but said I had to go because I was meeting someone. He asked if I was leaving because he had come back and I reassured him that, no, I really was leaving when he returned. He said he hoped to see me again because “you tend to come here at the end of the week.”
Visions of stalkers started flashing through my mind. Just as he had, I practically ran out the door. He’d made it past “weird” and all the way into “creepy” territory. I avoid that Starbucks on Fridays now.
So what do readers think? Am I overreacting or do you agree with me that the whole thing is a little odd? Would you be flattered or creeped out?
charlie_jackpot
He’s trying to make a point here, but that’s only from the comments he received.
His initial post was an ego boost ‘oh look at me I can turn on hot frat boys with only foot, plus I can afford to hang out in Starbucks’
sanfranca1
“I was working at Starbucks on a Friday afternoon … I was wearing flip flops and I pushed one off and sat on my foot with my bare foot facing him.”
Uh, you’re working at Starbucks, wearing flip flops, then sitting down?! What, precisely, is your job at Starbucks where you sit down…wearing flip flops? I didn’t even finish this obviously fake story.
zooby
Foot fetishes are gross. What is so sexy about a nasty ass foot?
Realitycheck
Hooooo Yea! He was definitely a flip flops wearing Barrista at Starbucks, did any one spill hot coffee on his feet?
unreligious
As someone who works in the food industry, I too question this article. There is no way Starbucks would permit an employee to wear flip flops. Their liability for accidents would be enormous. Nor would anyone with half a brain work in flip flops. Knives, hot coffee, hot tea etc. Funny how he goes from working their to hanging out there. Sounds like a repressed person with a stick up their you know what.
cnjkevin
@sanfranca1: I think when the writer is referring to working in Starbucks, he meant he was there as a customer doing his work as a writer, not as a barrista.
cnjkevin
@unreligious: I think when the writer is referring to working in Starbucks, he meant he was there as a customer doing his work as a writer, not as a barrista.
cnjkevin
@Realitycheck:I think when the writer is referring to working in Starbucks, he meant he was there as a customer doing his work as a writer, not as a barrista.
cnjkevin
@zooby: Having a foot fetish myself I will just remind you that there are those who feel that kissing a guy is gross.
Aromaeus
He touched you without your permission in a way that gave him sexual gratification. I’m pretty sure that’s textbook sexual harassment. Also yes the wording makes it seem like you are a barista in flip-flops and not a writer at a Starbucks wearing flip-flops.
cnjkevin
I can definitely see your point about feeling objectified, however, until we get to know someone, isn’t there always a level of objectification in public that attracts or repels us? I find it a bit of a turn on myself – especially since I have a foot fetish myself! That said, I’d be a bit flattered by the whole thing and see if the guy was more than just a creepy stalker. Maybe he was into you and didn’t have a better way to communicate or apologize given his age/lack of social skills/development?
JodyBoy
Lucky barista. I’d have jumped his bones! Bare feet are beautiful!
Sammy Schlipshit
Ho hum. Ridiculous story and reaction.
The writer should have gone with the flow….give the man what he wants.
Who knows what all adventures this writer may have experienced with the flirt-er.
Is that part of the excitement when meeting any guy? Ya just never know where any encounter may go.
I pity younger people. Most of you seem to be afraid of human interaction. Every little gesture and word is suspect.
Get over it.
martinbakman
@sanfranca1: I wondered the same thing although a lot of folks do their work while lounging at Starbucks. Perhaps that’s what he meant.
Putting one’s foot on the chair, bare or not, is a trailer trash move. Sorry if I sound like mean queen but people have forgotten how to behave in public, like women that bend over and shake their hair out, running their fingers through it. All those dead skin and follicle cells go everywhere. Or just grabbing a hair brush an brushing out their hair in public. People are so gross.
Avery Alvarez
Ridiculous SJW nonsense.
alphacentauri
@unreligious: Yeah I don’t see starbucks or any restaurant, cafe/coffee shop, etc. allowing employees to wear flip flops or sandals while working.
CWM85
I have a thing for cute barefeet but this sounds like a fantasy…
alphacentauri
@JodyBoy: Would you have taken him into the bathroom and licked his feet and toes, or done that right there at the table?
Big Head Baby
Odd yes, but not super creepy odd, I would have probably slapped his hand away – out of the blue touching is always a no-no.
isi22
I have a foot fetish I only like muscle guys,male fitness trainers/models and male bodybuilders with or without smelly feet
luxvitae
There is absolutely nothing wrong with having a foot fetish. But telling a perfect stranger about your specific sexual interests, and that you are being aroused by him, was completely inappropriate. Even more inappropriate was his unsolicited touching. That was just wrong. I have a foot fetish, and don’t blame the guy for finding the writer attractive. But the way he expressed himself was way out of line.
JodyBoy
@alphacentauri:
Life is short, why waste time?
Blackceo
@sanfranca1:
@unreligious:
Look at y’all. All loud and all wrong. Please understand context before you go spouting that someone’s story is fake. I do work on my laptop at Starbucks quite frequently and had study groups there while I was in secondary school and at University. How do you not comprehend that he meant he was a customer who was working while at Starbucks?
Anyway, I would’ve been creeped the hell out by this. One, I hate feet to begin with, but do appreciate a man with nice feet who gets pedicures. I mean I hope I wouldn’t have been a total dick about it but I do not have a poker face and you know exactly what I’m feeling and thinking by my facial expression so I’m sure I would’ve given some face that let him know that I am not the one to be pushing up on with the foot fetish thing. @unreligious:
Captain Obvious
Is this supposed to pretend roleplay porn? Doesn’t sound remotely like a real life scenario. And most men do not have cute feet in the first place. When you hit 30 something weird happens and your toes become witches.
Anyway fetishes are usually kept closely to the chest of the person who has it/them. I highly doubt a total stranger who is remotely attractive would come up to another stranger announcing that something odd turned them on. Anyone who isn’t socially inept would expect to be rejected off the bat and wouldn’t lead with something sexually taboo even on the 3rd date.
Story is fake, anyone who says it’s not is probably turned on by the fantasy.
JodyBoy
Tempest in a teapot.
stranded
I would have called it a humble-brag, but i don’t buy the story. Then again, who knows, the world is a strange place and just because this type of thing has never happen to me or anyone i know, it doesn’t mean it could never happen. I agree with his facebook comments in regards with hooking up with the guy. I’m not one to have casual sex, but if he was this “cute frat-boy type guy” as the writer describes and he was hitting on me to that degree, i probably would have hooked up with him. I mean he has every right to be freaked out and find it creepy.
Amu Darya
Dear author,
Thank you for sharing your experience. Imagining as best I can, I think I would be both flattered and upset. Though my self-esteem is such that any blatant display of sexual attraction to my body is terribly exciting to me, I would also be upset by this person’s obvious sense of entitlement towards manipulating other people’s bodies. Just like you, my first thought upon reading his initial comment to you was of school dress codes that blame girl students’ bodies for instigating sexual feelings in other students. His apology to you, while clearly the product of some consideration, was also (in my opinion) decidedly insufficient and possibly self-serving. He merely commented on the uncomfortable outcome of his actions and did not acknowledge how he had wronged you by violating your agency.
I am sorry that this person showed you so little respect.
SFHarry
About 20 years ago I had a similar experience but instead ended up making a date with the guy for the next night. When he arrived at my house the next night, just the three of us were there; him, me, and my feet. I didn’t get much attention. He had his way with my feet and then wanted to leave. He claimed to not feel the “same connection” as when we met the previous night. I could see he didn’t want to have sex and had already gotten what he wanted out of the evening. I told him not to worry about it and that we didn’t have to have sex. He could give me a foot massage if he wanted to. I ended up with a nice foot massage and a great story to tell at parties for years to come. Sometimes an experience where you learn something about someone very different from yourself can be fulfilling in ways you didn’t expect.
Robothedestroyer
@zooby: I don’t have a foot fetish but even i don’t think it’s gross at all. Feet can be cute 🙂 go look up online the correlation between risky sexuql promiscuity and the rise of foot fetishes in history. It’s a cool fead, at least, and if accurate give a different perspective on why such a fetish develops in a given number of adults in a generation.
Robothedestroyer
In the first bit, it was a little weird/creepy because he touched the author. The second part where he said sorry wasn’t. It’s possible beyond that initial attraction he liked more than just the authors feet and wanted to see him again and kinda try again. However, I think after the bluntness of the first interaction its unlikely but if this kid is as young as the author makes him sound he’ll figure it out and mature.
Paco
Not that I believe this story is real but…
Men that behave like sexual predators on a first meeting generally come across as creepy. Is self-control in public such a bad thing?
Johnathan
OMG WHY CANT ANYONE ENJOY ANYTHING ANYMORE WITHOUT IT BEING DISECTED TO DEATH. WETHER HE GOT HARD FROM WHEN YOUR EYES MEET OR YOUR BUBBLE BUTT! WHO CARES??? SUCH A HOT STORY LINE AND COULD BE ROMANTIC.; WITH HIM COMING BACK ON FRIDAYS CAUSE HE MIGHT SEE YOU AGAIN CAUSE HE KNOWS YOUR THERE, IS BY NO MEANS CREEPY IN MY HUMBLE OPINION. BESIDES IF WHERE ZAC EFFRON YOU WOULD’ THINK IT WAS PERFECTLY PERFECT .
scotty
@sanfranca1:
most likely means he was working on something other than actually being employed there. maybe his novel or a short story? who knows?
Bil Browning
@cnjkevin: Yes. Thanks. I thought that was obvious, but apparently not.
Bil Browning
@sanfranca1: I’m not a Starbucks barista, for crying out loud. I’m a writer.
SherDeLune
@sanfranca1: The author is not a barista. He is a freelance writer.
Magnus
I think you’re overreacting and being a drama queen. Blah blah blah, objectifying me. By all means objectify me or my feet if that’s what makes you happy
Magnus
@Bil Browning: Oh boy, you’re one of those types who goes to Starbucks to write… “Everyone look at me I’m a writer”. The people who write in starbucks scream of pretentiousness, brew a pot of coffee and write at home for God’s sake, why loiter and take up space that another paying customer could use?
Magnus
Btw why is this even an article on here? I thought this was a gay news website not an attention seeking blog. Stuff like this belongs on a personal blog for people who give a shit not on a website dedicated to gay news.
Magnus
@Bil Browning: “I’m a writer.” Well, that’s up for dispute. Judging by the quality of this article, I would disagree.
jeremy dale
I found this a fun and interesting story whether fact or fiction. I like men’s feet and find them sexy. I would never have the nerve to go up to a stranger in public and touch them anywhere although if someone did it to me I would be flattered and wouldn’t mind. A lot of over reactors here about sexual harassment and the writers job. It is obvious that he was not a Starbucks employee, he was doing other work there while having a coffee. And they were flirting and its a foot and its no big deal and get over it, gosh! And if you flirt with me and start flashing your foot, you’ll get the same treatment.
The moral of this comment is: Beware of what you do with a naked foot. You just never know when a foot fetisher will be lurking in the near distance.