I'm a heterosexual man who does not have a foot fetish. I've easily noticed the prevalence of feet in Tarantino movies. So has my wife, a bisexual woman. My wife also does not have a foot fetish, but has, like most women, been the victim of sexual assault. Both of us find the Tarantino "foot thing" to be more of a "feet are not my thing but I'm not going to kink shame" than anything else. That is, until I read this.

I side mostly with the 15-year-old boys here and push back on the "dozen straw men" designation. The masseuse and hairdresser examples are exactly like the shoe salesman example. Yes, hard to prosecute, but also hard to defend. How do you prove you didn't get sexual gratification if the person making the charge is a persuasive and/or sympathetic speaker?

Back to Tarantino. The key point is whether women were forced to show their feet when they didn't want to. The Margaret Qualley example seems a clear case of "yes."

Was Salma Hayek assaulted? We'd have to know what was discussed between Tarantino and Hayek to assess that situation.

I know the story of Tarantino pressuring Uma Thurman to drive an unsafe vehicle (as another commenter noted). I've also read that Ethan Hawke blames Tarantino for the breakup of his marriage to Thurman. I can't judge the latter. However, it is clear to me that Tarantino uses his authority to compel actors to do things they don't feel comfortable doing.

Did Tarantino get sexual gratification from forcing women to show their feet? Did he get sexual gratification from touching actresses' feet without consent? The number of instances documented and the number of films Tarantino has made would lead me to assume, "yes." This would mean, according to this article, that Tarantino has mostly likely committed sexual assault.

I got a lot of food for thought from this article. Thanks for a very mentally gratifying read.