With fingers and toes uncrossed, I can wholeheartedly say I find nothing arousing about feet.

They are the body's perpetual labourers, toiling at the grindstone while we shove them into tights, Converse, ballet pumps and all manner of ill-designed footwear. They sweat and harden while sprouting corns, veins and hair with age, rarely seeing the light of day.

Were a prospective sexual partner to ask me to nibble on a gnarled yellowing digit, I would more than likely pass, thanks very much.

So when an anonymous foot fetishist attempted to solicit me into sending photos of my size eights via WhatsApp, revulsion didn't quite cover the range of my emotions.

It began with an innocent Gumtree ad. I had attempted to sell a pair of beige high heels after a mass clear out on Monday morning. With the sun shining, I went about my day without giving the ad much thought - until this arrived in my inbox.

At first I thought my prospective buyer might have been a misguided social recluse, unfamiliar with Gumtree etiquette - and grammar.

I tentatively gave them the benefit of the doubt. I forgave the demanding tone and suggested we might do business IF they were indeed interested in the shoes. I heard nothing back, and felt violated.

Note the quick-fire messaging until the culprit was denied their prize. Note their lack of punctuation, so desperate for foot porn that full stops went forgotten. How very dare they.

Not so incidentally, this isn't the first time I've had an uncomfortably sordid discussion with someone who has seen one of my shoe ads on Gumtree. Last year I was on the cusp of meeting a man who claimed he wanted to buy a pair of £20 cowboy boots for a stag night - I called the whole thing off when he started asking my advice about stockings, suggesting I might watch him try on some lingerie along with my boots.

Enough was enough. I decided to alert the internet to the latest shoe fiend and posted a screenshot of the conversation on Facebook. I expected a tirade of abuse to be slung at the creep. "Outrageous", they'll say.

But everyone laughed. "Get the toes out for the lads," someone (definitely not my sister) joked.

I was dumbfounded - why was no one taking this toe-loving assailant seriously? Why had no one shared my post, warning women of the perils of this anonymous podophiliac, a faceless voyeur to our unwanted cast-offs?

But it soon dawned on me, I had unwittingly put my foot in my mouth.

In ridiculing this person's sexual preferences I had completely leap-frogged the crucial issue of the anonymous solicitation. That was after all, what had really bothered me - and I suspect, was the real thrill for the person on the other end of the line.

I see issues of sex laughed off more frequently than I'd like in this country. We treat the affair as one huge gag while stigmatising expressions of offbeat sexual interest in the process.

How often have you heard prospective parents cringe at the thought of explaining the ins and outs of intercourse to their curious offspring? For anyone who has ventured into Anne Summers - how meticulously do you keep your eye on any rogue sales assistants who might try to up-sell their latest line of Rampant Rabbits.

Masturbate, you say? Sorry, I left my copy of Dickens at home.

Considering how often we think about sex and how we are bombarded with it in the media, I find it astounding that Brits are so often incapable of talking about it in a pragmatic way.

And I don't mean to strangers on the street - I mean in scenarios where you can reasonably expect conversations about sex, between parents and children, GPs and patients and among close friends. And yes, between vibrator purveyor and consumer.

People of all ages are Googling questions on sexual health, anatomy and the psychology of relationships. We are curious about sex. If we're lucky, we get to enjoy sex. Isn't it time we addressed the giant fornicating rabbits in the room?

In 2013, Scotland saw 40 under 18s pregnant per 1000 population - a shocking figure when compared with the nine per 1000 in France and seven per 1000 in Germany that same year.

Our inarticulacy on sex is also seriously impacting health in the UK. Between 2000 - 2013, the UK had among the highest rates of STDs in Europe - including chlamydia, hepatitis C and gonorrhea. While France and Germany were nowhere to be seen in the top rankings, the UK had the most frequent cases of HPV across Europe at 131.65 cases per 1000 population.

There is no denying that a more liberal attitude towards sex opens up channels of communication, making for better education and better practices of safe sex. The World Health Organisation cites comprehensive sex education and counselling tailored to adolescents as the best prevention of STDs.

In Germany, sex education has been mandatory in schools since 1992, although the subject has been taught widely since the 1970s. Similarly, sex education in France has been part of the curriculum since 1973. France has committed to a curriculum, that - in addition to teaching about procreation and sexual intercourse - also addresses sexuality in the broader context of society, gender inequalities and relationship dynamics, according to French Family Planning.

It's a discourse that would be completely unheard of ten years ago in a Catholic school in Scotland - I can corroborate this with personal experience.

If I wasn't listening to my religious education teacher preach abstinence as the best form of contraceptive, I was watching my personal and social education teacher visibly recoil while reading an outdated booklet on teenage relationships, and the virtues of "going steady" like Nancy and Bill. Franker discussions on sex were had on Chewin' The Fat.

Even outwith Catholic education, comprehensive sex education is still shamefully lacking in Scotland - a 2014 poll of people aged 14 to 19 by charity Zero Tolerance suggested young people are turning to other sources, namely the internet for advice.

And while Buzzfeed's "27 questions you're too embarrassed to ask anyone but Google" is a masterpiece in gif-work, it hardly debunks the workings of our sex organs.

Look to more conservative cultures and you'll see the effect of sex as taboo in caricature.

Last week Japan was ridiculed for its attitude towards female genitalia after a woman was found guilty of breaking the country's obscenity laws. Megumi Igarashi was charged for distributing data that enabled recipients to make 3D prints of her vagina - she gave the information to people who had donated to her crowd-funded art project so she could make a kayak in the shape of her vagina.

Hey, whatever floats your boat.

I mentioned an article on the story to friends - and sighed in despair as people (men) shuddered at the utterance of the word "vagina". I was reminded of that brilliant moment when Stella Creasy forced Bill Cash to use the term "tampon" in a House of Commons debate in October last year, refusing to sit down until he had repeated the two syllables.

But why should it come to that? If we continue to be embarrassed by sex, something that comes naturally to us, the results will continue to harm generations to come.

And what about my foot fetishist?

Let me make my position clear - buttoned-down attitudes to sex are not to be blamed for those who abuse it. That is a choice they make, unquestionably. But perhaps if people wer e not so appalled by the concept of fetish, they might entertain a conversation about the time and place and safe practices for them. They might recognise that soliciting sexual favours from people online is unacceptable, whatever your taste. From what I can see, the anonymous assailant is a troubled individual - but silence on sex has left the rest of us screwed.