What Pies de Mercurio is
Pies de Mercurio is a bilingual (Spanish/English) editorial platform that studies the foot as a symbolic, historical, anatomical, artistic — and also erotic — object. Desire is part of the cultural history of the foot, and we treat it with the same seriousness as myth, art, or science.
This document explains how we approach the erotic, what we publish, and how we treat the people who collaborate with us.
Where we stand: we don’t sell, we edit
Pies de Mercurio doesn’t sell erotic content or charge for it. What we do is talk, contextualize, and curate. The line between pornographic and editorial isn’t about how much is shown — it’s about who decides what gets shown, by what criteria, and inside what story.
Our starting point is a specific history. Photographer Elmer Batters was taken to court on obscenity charges in the late 1950s and early 1960s for photographing legs and feet. Decades later, the fetish that landed him in court became merchandise on content-selling platforms. And his work ended up in Taschen books and in a 2008 retrospective at the IVAM in Valencia.
Taboo, trial, merchandise, museum. Pies de Mercurio sits in that last stretch: we look at desire as culture, and at the people who work with it as interlocutors, not as product.
What we publish and what we don’t
| We publish | We don’t publish |
|---|---|
| Interviews with creators of erotic foot content, whether their work is explicit or not | Explicit sexual acts or genitals, on any channel |
| Conversations with sexologists, psychologists, artists, and people who live the fetish | A person’s material without their prior approval of the selection |
| Curated photography: an edited selection, never a dump of someone’s full catalog | Paid content presented as if it were Pies de Mercurio’s own |
| Essays on desire, fetish, and the history of the foot | Mockery, pathologizing, or moral judgment of the people who appear |
Appearing in Pies de Mercurio doesn’t mean we publish someone’s entire body of work. We choose pieces that speak to the interview and to our visual line.
How we treat the people who appear
- Subject, not object. The person interviewed is the author of their own story. The image accompanies their voice — it doesn’t replace it.
- Verified adulthood. Everyone who appears is 18 or older, verified with ID before publishing.
- Written consent. Every collaboration is sealed with an image and interview release agreement stating what gets published, where, and for how long.
- Prior review. The person sees the final image selection and text before it goes live. They can request changes or pull pieces.
- Possible withdrawal. If someone later asks for a piece to be taken down, we remove it from our channels.
- Protected identity. We use whatever stage name the person chooses. We don’t publish personal data.
- No judgment. We don’t treat fetish as pathology or sex work as shameful. Our questions aim to understand, not to expose.
What goes on each channel
| Channel | What it shows | Links to the person |
|---|---|---|
| Only the most subtle selection: feet, gesture, composition. No nudity. | A mention of their Instagram account, never a link to paid-content pages | |
| piesdemercurio.com | The full interview and editorial curation, with a content notice for readers 18+ on sensitive pieces | A link to their website or Instagram. Never a direct link to content-selling platforms. |
| YouTube | The video conversation, held to the same standard as Instagram | A link to the interview on the website |
We link to the person, not their shop: their website or their Instagram, where they decide what to show and where to sell. Social platforms moderate based on what’s shown and linked, not on context — so this is how we protect the reach of both the interview and the person.
How to collaborate
If you work with the foot through desire, clinical practice, art, or your own story, we’d like to talk. The process is simple:
- An initial conversation to get to know each other and see if it’s a fit.
- Signing the release agreement and age verification.
- The interview and, if relevant, a shoot or material selection.
- Your review of the selection and the text.
- Publication and promotion on the agreed channels.
Contact: Pies de Mercurio’s Instagram or piesdemercurio.com.