To my sheer delight, I ran across some fascinating scientific information last night in my reading of The Brain in Love by Dr. Daniel Amen. “In the brain, the sensory area of the foot is right next door to the sensory area for the clitoris. Unknowingly, women often feel that buying shoes is like foreplay.” Finally, proof for what I have been telling Eric for all these years!

I announced this revelation on my Facebook page and it lit up like a Christmas tree. (One that is impeccably decorated and lacking the God-awful elf dangling front and center.) Women rushed to share their endorsement of this statement. It seems I am not the only one with a deep fondness for shoes.

In fact, S. Rachman and R.J. Hodgson, two sex researchers conducting studies in 1968, decided to try and create a shoe fetish in male test subjects using Pavlov’s theory of conditioning. It worked. The men became aroused simply from the sight of shoes after the experiment was over. While knee-high boots and high-heeled black shoes seemed effective, “no man got an erection from looking at brown string sandals.” Thank you to Mary Roach who wrote the brilliant book Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex and shared this tidbit with us.

The moral of the story? Men, let your wives buy as many shoes as they want. Women, stay away from brown string sandals.