Abstract
Among the many obscure sects of sexual fetishism, few remain as perplexing as that of the “crush freaks,” who are aroused by the sight of an insect exploded beneath a human foot. Moving beyond the glib discussions of those entomologists and sexologists who classify this fetish as a subset of foot worship and/or macrophilia, I propose an analysis of the crush freaks through the writings of French thinker Georges Bataille. Employing Bataille’s notions of sacrificial eroticism and mysticism to approach the religio-sexual dimensions of crush freakism, I argue that these practices are best understood as ambivalent manifestations of technophilia (sexual arousal associated with machinery). More specifically, crush freakism, I submit, devolves on a violent literalization of the analogies between insects and machines.
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