The vajankle designed and sold by Sinthetics
The vajankle - as the name suggests - is a sex toy designed for podophiles; a synthetic foot that comes complete with an inbuilt vagina. And a French pedicure. Whilst I'm sure it was developed with good intentions (i.e. to give pleasure), I think it fails for two reasons.
Firstly, due to its almost-but-not-quite natural appearance it triggers an uncanny valley response (i.e. a feeling of revulsion). Thus the vajankle is aesthetically disturbing; it makes one think of heavy-footed zombies stumbling about or corpses lying in a morgue, rather than bare-footed beauties with dainty feet and lively little toes.
Doubtless there are necrophiles aroused by the former and by fantasies of mutilation, but most foot fetishists love the vitality and playfulness of pretty feet as they dangle on the end of lovely legs; they wish to kiss and caress the objects of their desire, not chop them off.
Secondly, the vajankle completely misses the point of a fetish for a genuine devotee; it isn't merely a substitute for something else or a type of foreplay before the real event - i.e. genital penetration. Podophiles love feet and have no interest in sexual intercourse as traditionally conceived; they're not looking to ejaculate within a vagina, be it real or otherwise.
Secondly, the vajankle completely misses the point of a fetish for a genuine devotee; it isn't merely a substitute for something else or a type of foreplay before the real event - i.e. genital penetration. Podophiles love feet and have no interest in sexual intercourse as traditionally conceived; they're not looking to ejaculate within a vagina, be it real or otherwise.
In other words, they subscribe to an entirely different economy of bodies and their pleasures than those who automatically insert their penises where they've been instructed to put them. Foot fetishists, like paraphiliacs in general, want to find new uses for old organs; transforming sex into an exploratory ordeal in which, as Ballard puts it, the body becomes a ripening anthology of perverse possibilities.
Placing a fake pussy into a rubber foot is, therefore, a banal and laughably naive gesture; both unimaginative and reactionary. There's nothing depraved or deviant about it. It's an attempt to bring the fetishist back into line by reinforcing the view that nothing is more gratifying or exciting than the membrane of a vagina (an orifice designated as the only legitimate and natural place of orgasm).
Ultimately, what makes perverts philosophically interesting is the fact that whilst they may want to masturbate at every given opportunity, they also want to build bodies without organs and to have done with the judgement of God ...
