Fetishism in Jennifer Crusie’s Bet Me

The Jennifer Crusie novel entitled Bet Me is a story about betting on people, love, and relationships.  In the Romance novel, there are the typical elements of the genre in the story; talking to the opposite sex, getting to know the opposite sex, kissing, and sex.  As the reader delves deep into the story, there are instances of fetishism in the novel that add to the sensuality of the story.

Bet Me is the story of Minerva Dobbs and Calvin Morrissey and their journey to discover love.  At the beginning of the story, Minerva gets dumped by her boyfriend at a local hangout.  Before the night is over, David makes a bet with Calvin Morrissey, a womanizer who has never been rejected by a woman that he can’t get Minerva to leave the bar with him.  Calvin makes that bet even though Minerva seems to be an uptight angry woman.  David decides to make the bet more interesting by betting Calvin $10,000 that he can’t get Minerva to have sex with him.  Although Calvin tries to get out of this bet, David feels that the bet has been accepted.  Meanwhile, Minerva overhears Calvin and David make the bet to sleep with her, but she thinks it is for $10.00 instead of $10,000.  In anger towards David for making the bet and towards Calvin for accepting the bet, Minerva accepts Calvin’s invitation to leave the bar with him and go out to dinner.  This dinner date leads to a journey that will see more bets made about love and relationships, people learning about themselves, the discovery of love, and the realization that fate sometimes has plans for a person that they don’t expect.

Crusie has many instances of sexual suggestion in the story from saying that a good way to get a husband is to wear sexy underwear to using Krispy Crème donuts to seduce a woman.  A seductive use of fetishism is found in the story.  As Calvin and Minerva reluctantly get to know each other, the reader discovers that Calvin has a shoe/foot fetish.  Sigmund Freud suggests that the fetish is a substitute for the female penis that little boys believe that their mothers once had, but eventually lost through castration.  The male child refuses to believe that his mother does not have a penis, so the penis has to become something different.  Freud states, “…the foot or shoes 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…” (843).  In many cases, the feet or shoes are acceptable preferences for men with fetishes.

The first instance of Calvin’s shoe/foot fetish is seen when he and Minerva are going to a restaurant just after Calvin made the bet.  As they are walking to the restaurant, Calvin notices her shoes.  “He looked at her foot and stopped, probably faking concern, and she stopped, too.  “What?”  “Nice shoes,” he said, and she looked down at her frosted-plastic open-toed heels tied with floppy black bows.  “Thank you,” she said, taken aback that he’d noticed” (Crusie 31).

A little later on in the story, Minerva thinks about Calvin noticing her shoes and believes that it is because he is a womanizer who always gets the woman he is after.  “Which was just the kind of thing his kind of guy would do” (33), but as the story continues, it can be seen that Calvin has a shoe/foot fetish.  As Minerva and Calvin are eating dinner, Calvin asks Minerva, “So what are your interests in life besides great shoes?” (41).  He again focuses on Minerva’s shoes, showing his fetish with shoes.  The instances of the shoe/foot fetish is not limited to real life feet and shoes.  The choice of music in the story even shows an interest in shoes.  As Calvin enters his office on the next day, the Elvis Costello song, “The Angels Wanna Wear My Red Shoes” is playing on the CD player, furthering showing an interest in shoes and feet.

When Calvin and Minerva are on a picnic in the park, Calvin asks to see Minerva’s shoes.  Minerva’s slow reaction prompts Calvin to look under the table for himself.  Crusie in-depth description of Minerva’s shoes and feet show Calvin’s interest in women’s shoes and feet.

“What?” Min said, and Cal looked under the table.  She pulled her foot out and he looked down at her open-toed high-heeled mules, laced across her instep with black leather thongs that contrasted with her pale skin and bright red toenail polish…  Cal sat very still, looking at her toes for a long moment.  “Well, that’s made my evening…” (88).

At another meeting, Calvin mentions Minerva’s shoes that are made of ribbon and have a bright red flower on them.  The two of them discuss the shoes and Calvin then becomes distracted by her toes so much so that she has to pull her skirt over them to regain his attention.  There are more instances of Calvin shoe fetish in the story.  The more Minerva gets to know Calvin, the more the reader sees his shoes fetish.  At every encounter that they two of them have, Calvin mentions Minerva shoes and thinks about her toes.  Calvin even gives Minerva a pair of French heeled open-toed mules covered with white fur.  A character in the story mentions a guy with a foot fetish.  The comment comes as Minerva, Calvin, and their friends are discussing what shoes a woman was wearing in a movie.  Feet and shoes have a prominent role in the Crusie novel.

Both Calvin and Minerva have pinned up sexual tension towards each other, but Minerva does not intend to have sex with Calvin.  Calvin does not want to have sex with Minerva either, so there is quite a bit of sexual frustration for Calvin.  The reader finds out that Calvin, a man who is used to having sex, hasn’t had sex in 5 months or more, also.  Freud suggests that since a man’s fetish is a secret that he keeps, the man can be satisfied sexually (Freud 843).  Feasibly, Calvin focus on Minerva’s shoes is sexual satisfaction for Calvin.  The instances of fetishism in Bet Me make for a fascinating story about Calvin’s and Minerva’s journey to find love.

Works Cited

Works Cited

Crusie, Jennifer. Bet Me. New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 2004. Kindle File.

Freud, Sigmund. “Fetishism.” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch et al. 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2010.  841-845.  Print.

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