In his essay "Fetishism," Freud says, "…the foot or shoe owes its preference as a fetish — or a part of it — to the circumstance that the inquisitive boy peered at the woman’s genitals from below, from her legs up, fur and velvet — as has long been suspected — are a fixation of the sight of the pubic hair, which should have been followed by the longed-for sight of the female member; pieces of underclothing, which are so often chosen as a fetish, crystallize the moment of undressing, the last moment in which the woman could still be regarded as phallic.”