here is the first installment of a bunch of letters and notes I collected from advice columns and a couple of so-called "research" inquiries at a small indiana school. these were not downloaded, they were re-typed, so please excuse typos. in some cases, non-foot text was left out, so there may be gaps in logic. A guy named Steve, and another named Scott, asked girls about "weird" things guys pulled on them. The unfortunat ething about some of the replies was, girls didn't seem as much into it as the guys who worshipped them and their feet. Enjoy.

dear wendi,

I think my friends are getting weird on me. At a sleepover a couple of months ago, my two girlfriends were sitting on the floor, and I was sitting on the bed, with my bare feet dangling over the edge. One of them stroked the bottom of my foot and I let out a yell. They thought this was funny, so they grabbed my ankles and started tickling my feet. I was laughing so hysterically that my friend's mom finally came in and got them to stop.

It was kind of stupid and funny to begin with, but now it's like a game with them. A few times since then, when I've been with one or both of them, I've gotten my feet tickled. It's like if they see me barefoot, I'm an instant target. It's really starting to bother me. At a party last weekend, a bunch of us, girls and guys, were sitting around talking, and my friends were telling people about how ticklish my feet are. Next thing I know, people are grabbing me, pulling off my socks, and torturing me. They think it's funny because they're not really hurting me, but I really hate it, and they don't take that seriously. Don't I have a right to complain?

Tootsies are too ticklish

dear wendi,

You were right on telling "too ticklish" to tell her friends to lay off her tootsies. During the summer I never wear shoes, indoors or out, and last year I had a boyfriend who just had to tickle me every time he saw me barefoot. It got to the point where I was afraid to be shoeless around him. At the eighth-grade grad dance, I had kicked off my shoes and put my feet up on a chair, and he came along and tickled them, in front of everybody. That's when I found out that nylons make your feet more ticklish. I finally broke up with him for about a week because of the constant tickling. Tickling can be cruel if it's carried too far.

My toes aren't for tickling

It all started when I was a precocious nine-year-old girl, with my babysitter, Jenny. Jenny was thirteen or fourteen, and everything I wanted to be. She knew everything about the world, as far as I was concerned, and she looked great in cutoffs nad peasant tops.

The night it started, I was curled up on the floor, and Jenny was stretched out on our couch, on her belly, and we were watching TV. She had kicked off her flip-flops, and her long legs looked great. ANyway, at nine o'clock sharp, she announced, "Hit the sack." Protesting never did any good. On this particular night, as I walked along the couch to give her a goodnight kiss on the cheek, I couldn't help but notice the bottoms of her bare feet, with her painted toes intertwined, and I playfully ran my finger over her pink sole. She let out a shriek, and said, "You little rat." I kissed her cheek, and then turned to go, but as I did, I playfully stroked both her feet, and again she shrieked, only this time she jumped up. I ran as fast as I could, my fuzzy slippers sliding on the hardwood floor as I dashed for the stairs. I ran up toward my room, and was just about to slam the door, when she caught me. Jenny dragged me to my bed, put my ankles in a leg-lock, pulled off my slippers, and began tickle-torturing my feet. "Bet you won't do that again," she warned me. We both laughed like hell, and I went to sleep.

It was a couple of visits later when I dared again. This time she had just painted her toenails, and had her long legs stuck through the two shelves of our ugly art deco coffee table, with cotton between her toes. Once again, I was about to head for bed, but this time I was all set up. My bedroom door was just barely open, with the knob already set to lock. I had left my slippers upstairs; barefoot, I would have better traction in the hallway. I said goodnight, then ran around to the front of the coffee table, and gave her arches a quick tickle. It was all she could do to kick and scream, since her back was to the couch, and she couldn't immediately pull her legs out from the tight space between the shelves. So I kept it up. She threatened me between bouts of hysterical laughter. Finally I quit, and ran for the stairs. This time I was in my room with the door locked before she could catch me.

But two weeks later, she had her revenge. When she first came in the door, before my parents had even left, she told me, "Remind me later, I have a present for you." I forgot about it later. But when we were watching the tube that night, she reminded me in a big way. I was on my stomach, on the floor, reclining on my dad's big Chicago Bears blanket. At nine o'clock sharp, Jenny snuck up from behind, and threw the edge of the blanket over me, then grabbed me under my belly and rolled me over, four or five times, until I was tightly wrapped up like in a cocoon. Then she dragged me toward the couch. She sat down, but pulled my legs up into her lap. She had her bag on the couch next to her.

"Remember I had a present for you?" she said deviilishly. "Well, here it comes." And she pulled from her bag, much to my horror, a long white feather. Then she slowly, cruelly rolled my socks off my oh-so-sensitive feet, and began teasing just the tips of my bare toes with the feather. I screamed and begged for her to stop, but she only started running that instrument of torture over the tops of my feet. It was a terrible, yet terribly exciting, situation to be in. I was the center of this intense feeling, this bizarre, torturous, yet wonderful attention. Then I just went crazy when she applied the feather to the bottoms of my feet. She kept up the foot-tickling for a good twenty minutes or so, stopping every so often to let me catch my breath, and to maybe just tease for a while, and to tell me what was coming, before starting up again. I was relieved, yet disappointed, when she fianlly put the feather down, but that was only so she could finish off by giving me one last bout of hysterical laughter by using her fingernails on my soles. This was both horrible and wonderful, like being punished and given a present at the same time.

It's a strange part of my life ever since. WHile I still greatly enjoy tickling other people's feet, I am even more addicted to having my own feet tickled. I've invented over the years various techniques for getting people to tickle me.

When barely in my teens, I loved sleepovers, because it meant horsing around with other girls in my bare feet. At least once each sleepover, I could entice somebody into tickling me simply by letting my feet dangle in somebody's face, or by lying on my stomach and having my feet be near somebody. Then by complaining playfully about being tickled, or especially by yelling, "Hey! Stop that, that tickles!" when somebody did tickle me, I could usually entice even more of it.

One of my fondest memories of this activity came when I was fifteen. My boyfriend, Todd, and I were at the Indiana Dunes. He was digging a large hole in the sand, just for the heck of it, and I saw potential there. I laid in the middle of his hole, my butt plugging it up, with my head and feet sticking out at the ends. "NOW what you gonna do?" I teased him. He responded by shoving a pile of sand on top of me. "Hey, stop that!" I goaded him. He shoved more and more sand on top of me, until finally I was covered from neck to ankles. He patted the pile everywhere, and then he said, "Hey, can you get up?"

I already knew I couldn't, but I acted surprised. "Hey, I can't. Hey, get me out of here!" He sat down next to my feet. I wiggled my toes and flexed my feet frantically, to make sure they got his attention. He thankfully eyed them, and I knew he was hooked. "YOu really can't get up?" he asked again. "No," I whined, "I can't." And that's when he began tickling. My feet had been wonderfully stimulated by sand and water that whole day, and were really sensitive to the touch. It was the most divine torture.

One friend's husband is very accomodating. "Bob" & "Lynn" live nearby, and I visit frequently. I always make sure I'm wearing nothing more than knee-hi nylons inside my shoes when I go there, but typically I'm barefoot. I also always make myself at home when I get there, kicking off my shoes as soon as I'm inside, then stretching out on their couch. Whether I'm on my back or my front, I make sure my legs are hanging over the armrest, so that the bottoms of my feet are clearly visible and tempting to Bob from his favorite chair a couple of feet away.

I wiggle my toes, sometimes intertwine them, flex my feet, cross my legs at the ankles, whatever I need to do to make my eager tootsies conspicuous. Usualy two or three times a visit, Bob will lean over and scratch at my toes or arches, usually when Lynn is in the kitchen or bathroom. I'l give him a giggle, a shriek of delight, and a "Hey, don't do that!" which only encourages him.