What are Fedlegs?
This is all a lot to unpack. If Jean Baudrillard were alive to see this, the cultural philosopher would have something to say about the symbolic "covering" of skin with paint that functionally leaves nothing to the imagination. It'd probably be something along the lines of his assessment of the gold-painted Bond girl in Goldfinger, that it's "incarnated to an absurd extent the phantasm of the erotic," and that in our mass culture, "'body hugging' tights, girdles, stockings, gloves, dresses and clothes, not to mention sun-tans: the leitmotiv of the 'second skin' and the transparent pellicle always come to vitrify the body. The skin itself is defined not as 'nudity' but as an erogenous zone, a sensuous medium of contact and exchange, a metabolism of absorption and excretion.""His solution was simple… paint; bright yellow paint to be exact; a permanent paint that was sure to catch the eye of anyone who looks at it. These girls desired attention, and he planned on forever giving it to them… At last, Charles decided to focus his attention on a woman’s legs; a very feminine feature that also happens to be the strongest part (muscle-wise) of women. This decision allowed Ostrog to treat his project as Utopian art; forcibly painting the legs of women he saw as inappropriately dressed while making his statement as clear as possible."
The Fedleg Fetish
Which is what the fetishists of Fedleg's world attest to: a seed was already planted, via kinks for leggings or light BDSM, and those bright yellow gams just beckoned them in."I've had a pantyhose/nylon/stocking fetish for a very long time," u/BOOOOOOOBIES, a moderator at r/FedLegs, told me. "It's something that I enjoy with my partner and on my own. There are aspects of the fedleg universe that I enjoy and maybe some new things I've come to appreciate as well. I kind of enjoy the fringes of the fetish more than the entire thing." Another frequent poster to the subreddit, who requested anonymity, told me that they already had a legs and tights kink, and is into BDSM. "Fedlegs combined everything. And it was creative and new to me and I liked that," they said. "I've tried it a few times in real life now and it was weird but fun."“Every once in a while I see a girl irl with yellow legs and I think damn this one random nutjob on the internet planted an idea in my head that influences how I perceive the world.”
The community is what kept this weird little corner of the internet going for so long, and in general, a sense of community is what keeps people together who have fetishes that the wider world doesn't accept or appreciate."Being honest and open with a fetish is what helps to tie a bond between fellow enthusiasts. Sharing what excites you and how you feel when in certain situations is important. Kink can tie us together," u/BOOOOOOOBIES said. "By building a community around fetishes, it can help to normalize behaviours and establish norms. What's been interesting to see is the content that has been created by people who want to please others and by people who want to try something new to please themselves. It's spurred exploration.""I AM forever changed by this subreddit," Laura said. "I will never not say FEDLEGS when confronted with yellow legs. And get amused all over again. Jim's aim was to please, entertain and possibly titillate and I would say he achieved his objective with me." Whether the Fedlegs community keeps going or fizzles away forever, Jim's not letting the storyline stop there. Now, he's working with a few other collaborators on an anthology of short stories that take place in the Fedleg Universe. But the fetish side of the project will always be a part of the history of the universe, Jim told me, even if he's not a part of it anymore. "What if Doctor Fedleg’s World, which was already dealing with themes of dominance and inequality, was given as a platform for women and the LGBTQ community to express their feelings, fears, and voice in a safe environment?" he said. "A fictional universe that was by all accounts insane, but glazed with reality.""Jim certainly succeeded" in his goal to formulate a new fetish, another Fedleg member told me. "After all, I and a few others have the fetish now, even though it seems like he doesn’t want it to be a fetish anymore." Starting with legs was a springboard. It's not like Jim invoked Rule 35 to fetishize something as innocuous as inanimate objects. He didn't start posting, say, plain yellow dining chairs. Painted women's legs were just close enough to already-established eroticism, barely but blatantly tweaked away from the norm, to catch on as something new. Examining how Fedleg started is a look at how nascent kink communities begin by using the internet in a cycle of support, enthusiasm, shared in-jokes and stories—a pair of yellow legs stalking out of the primordial soup of sexuality online.“After all, I and a few others have the fetish now, even though it seems like he doesn’t want it to be a fetish anymore”