Weekend Diversion: Night Of The Ponies
Pedway, First Store Open At Block 37
Around Town
Around Town
Red-Light Cameras Not So Special?
Warning: This Chicagoist post has been rated R.
If you’ve continued reading, please fix your gaze on the picture to the right, and consider how it makes you feel. Disgusted? Indifferent? Excited? Strangely tingly? For one Chicago gentleman, a more explicit adjective might be appropriate.
Over the past few years, a pattern has emerged as scores of Northside men (including Chicagoist) have been propositioned for sexual favors while minding their own business on the streets of Lakeview (especially along Broadway). Anyone living in a big city certainly runs the risk of being hit up for sex from time to time, but these incidents are noteworthy because they are almost identical in methodology, single-minded in purpose and unmistakably the work of a single individual.
And what is it that he seeks? Just one thing: your feet.
Based on our own experience and descriptions from six people that have encountered this person, Chicagoist is able to extrapolate that the encounters universally go like this:
1) A normal looking gentleman approaches his target, either in broad daylight or at night, and opens a conversation by asking the location of a nearby bar, shop or restaurant.
2) Once given an answer, the gentleman immediately changes the topic and divulges that he has a foot fetish. He will often ask that his target not laugh at him (Chicagoist obliged).
3) Given that the target has not walked away at this point, the gentleman will offer money in exchange for the target accompanying him to his home or a nearby restroom, and sticking their feet in his face while he pleasures himself.
Chicagoist, who was propositioned for a “date” in the bathroom of the Broadway/Belmont Chipotle restaurant, refused the offer but took pride in the fact that our offer was $20 ($2 per toe!), while a friend was offered only $10 a year prior.
Seriously, though, Chicagoist is worried that this is turning into an epidemic. Have any readers had their tootsies admired by the mystery man? How did they handle the situation? Has anyone ever said “yes?”
For the record, Chicagoist has nothing against people with foot fetishes… or any fetishes, for that matter. Furries have their animals, and some people even seem to revel in the playful adaptation of urine into the sexual arena. To each his own, but Chicagoist just wonders if maybe Mr. Foot Fetish would have better luck if he posted a personal ad or visited a chat room.
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This guy! He sounds exactly like a guy who wandered around DeKalb (NIU) back in the mid-nineties. Same Modus Operandi; same price; same foot fetish. In college I knew three people who'd been propositioned. None took him up on it.
But we did spend an afternoon pondering this question one of our friends raised: When selecting a target, do you think he says to himself, "I gotta see that guy's feet!" or "That dude looks like he needs twenty bucks!"?
I've lived here three months and have yet to be approached. Bummer! I'm off to do some investigative reporting by foot. I'll be at Belmont and Broadway... Maybe I can get an exclusive interview.
I'm from Erie, PA, and we have a guy like that too! I used to work in a department store in the mall there, and he would hit up all the young girls, admiring their shoes and asking to see them. Then, when the shoes are off, he caresses their feet and asks if he can give a foot rub. Creepy!!!
thanks to scott we know the perp isn't tara reid dressed like a man.. because.. she like totally HATES feet. .
I had two buddies that lived on Sheffield just North of Waveland and both of them got prop'd within about a month of one another. Right outside their house!
No one was poor enough to do it though, there were still CD's to sell for beer money.
several things:
1) why is this posted under gay/lesbian? sorry, i guess i'm always assuming "chicagoist" is in reference to a lady, even though this was written by an Aaron.
2) i have not been propositioned. yet. i can hardly wait. (i do live in that neighborhood-ish... yech.)
3) when i worked at a department store in high school, we had a perv like this. he would come in, and working retail on our feet all day, some ladies would be standing behind the register w/o shoes. when spotted, employees would warn one another, and if someone happened to be wearing sandals that day even, they were sent to hide in the back room. all this in a town of about 20,000.*/
maybe because the perv is a guy and he's always asking to see only guy's feet? so he's not only got a foot fetish, he's got a gay foot fetish?
i debated long and hard about which category to post this under, and using reasoning that echoes what rachelle wrote, i thought it belonged in gay/lesbian land.
jen, my name is andrew (not aaron) and i be a boy. "chicagoist" is an all-inclusive term, which reveals nothing about gender, sexual orientation or fetish.
my apologies, andrew, for i cannot read. and i know, i know, chicagoist is gender-neutral, i just base it on when it first started it was the two ladies. ditto what i assume on gothamist... her name's jen, no?
no biggie.
but, does this man only target other men? although the tale was told from your viewpoint, nothing was given to indicate the other six people who recounted their stories were also male. you pick, i pick...
yeh, the only reason i guessed that he was propositioning only men was because i was talking to andrew about it before he wrote the post. i could see how it could be a little confusing. on the bright side, jen, you've got nothing to worry about over there.
good question, jen. perhaps it's too deeply buried in there, but i did refer to "scores of northside men" in the post... sorry if that left it too open. i'll be sure to spell out in future posts on this chap, of which i hope there will be many, that he's only out for da dudes...
everyone that i know that has been targeted by the foot guy has been male... and, though i didn't want to get into this in the post, the establishments he asks about in his opening question tend to be about gay bars or gay-centric restaurants, etc. he approached my partner as he was coming out of a gay bar one night (charlie's), and when he bestowed his wishes upon me, he'd asked about berlin and crobar... not purely gay, of course, but quite gay-centric.
I have 3 coworkers, female, who have all had their boyfreinds approached by this guy, as have myself and 3 of my male freinds. We have been traking this man for months now. I was hit on at a party for gay pride, one of said coworkers invited me, and he boyfriend recognized him, but too late for me to avoid him.
I know where he works.
wow, the plot thickens! brandon, this is quite a revelation... i'm assuming all your friends said no to this guy?
if he was at the party of your coworker, does that mean your coworker is friends with him?
not sure i want to know where he works, though... i'm certainly not out to embarrass the guy. i just think there MUST be a way for to reach an audience that is less, um... random?
Isn't that what the Reader personals section is for?
"You were a person with some potentially good-looking feet at the Walgreens on Belmont and Broadway. I was the guy waving a $20 at you. I thought you might have given me a nod of assent but you got on the #36 before I could catch up with you. Care for coffee and amateur podiatry at Intelligentsia?"
Different story, related note: In Minneapolis, a group of friends went downtown to check out this store called Sex World, but one girl forgot her ID and had wait in the unfortunate location of the Sex World doorway to avoid the rain. A man came up to her and silently held up a small sign that said MAY I KISS YOUR TOES? She said, "No," and he left. She then decided to drive around the block until it was time to go home.
Maybe there's something about strangers and public places related to this particular fetish. All of these examples seem to be more specific than just getting turned on by your lover's feet.
one time i was walking down the street on a hot summer day wearing sandles and some dude told me i had pretty toes.
$10. That's all he offered me! I guess either inflation or desperation has upped the price. He approached me as I walked out of Charlie's and, seriously, I don't think I have ever laughed that hard. Was looking all over for the Candid Camera...
I ain't no toe ho, so I declined.
If it's the same guy, I was offerend $40 from him in the State Street Marshall Fields a couple of years ago. It was winter and I had an after work meeting downtown for which I'd arrived in the loop far too early. I stepped in to get some gloves -- which is where he'd approached me.
For me, he asked me where he knew me from, I'd ever been to Crobar (I had -- maybe twice), asked about their fetish night (which I wasn't aware they had) and there we were.
So the economy sucks for everyone if he's only offering $10/$20 now. He also bought me the gloves I was looking at. Um, I mean, he would have if we'd found an empty room on the 7th floor of Fields...which may or may not have happened...yeah... let's just say it didn't take him long.
I also know a couple of guys whom he has approached. When I told this funny little story, I was surprised with the number of "oh yeah, I know him" -- they described him physically and I was pretty certain it was the same guy. I think he's a Boystown legend.
And for the record, the face-to-face angle isn't his only tactic. He also approached me recently online making a similar offer. I'm fairly sure he doesn't remember/realize he's had my 9.5's in his face before.
-Mike...who should probably make this comment anonymously but fuck it
This little piggie went to market... This little piggie went home...
mike, i much appreciate your honesty. and, man, $40 and a pair of gloves?? you made out like a bandit!
i hope you, at the very least, still enjoy the gloves.
by the way, he used the fetish night thing with me, too, but referring to berlin. probably all made up...
One man's honesty is another's complete lack of shame. I'm blessed w/ both, I suppose.
And, like all nice, small, non-electronic things (sunglasses, gloves, umbrellas), I managed to lose the gloves shortly thereafter.
I totally missed this post last week! I was approached by this guy a couple of months ago in the same Chipotle, with the same angle about fetish night at Berlin. He worked on me for at least ten minutes while I kept trying to politely decline and go back to my magazine. I had no idea he was a serial solicitor!
I must say he offered me a lot more money, though. Maybe things are looking up for him.
Um....is anyone else here grossed out by feet other than me? The very idea of foot fetishism is disturbing. I would love someone to explain to me how that works.