Some of you have never been in love and it shows. 

You’ve never had the feeling that you and your partner’s names are etched next to each other at the very core of the Earth. You have never felt that cosmically you exist as one body. You have never bowed before the world to place a little kiss upon the tops of your partner’s feet. 

But I’d bet Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco have. At very least, there is a video circulating of Selena and Benny that suggests as much. Fifty minutes into recording Blanco’s video podcast Friends Keep Secrets with co-hosts Lil Dicky and Kristin Batalucco, Gomez gently kissed one of Blanco’s toes as she sat on the ground near his legs. 

“You like that?” Blanco jokingly asked the room before Gomez tapped his legs and laughed, “Oh, don’t make it a moment!”

Then, Blanco sweetly replied: “No. I wasn’t. I liked it. It made me feel good. I love you so much.”

With this public display of affection following another viral clip from the week prior of Blanco sitting on his couch with visibly dirty feet, this little moment sent much of social media into a gross-out, yielding plenty of throwing up emojis.

“this set feminism back by centuries… women have some self respect,” one woman wrote. “Selena Gomez, a billionaire, kissing a lowly man’s filthy feet,” said another. 

First off, let’s be clear: that was just a peck. Give me a call when she’s sucking toes. Secondly, there seems to be some misinterpretation as to why Selena Gomez kissed his feet. It wasn’t because she particularly likes kissing his feet, as far as I can tell. It also wasn’t because he likes it when she does that. Plenty of people do, of course, have foot fetishes or otherwise enjoy their partner’s feet just as they do the rest of their bodies. It was because, in the context of the other recent video of Benny Blanco and his dirty-ass feet, she wanted to emphasize that she loves him and his quirks wholeheartedly, that the features other people might see as nasty are part and parcel of the man she married. 

I have not, to my memory, kissed any man’s feet. But if my partner was being publicly ridiculed for them and I wanted to signal to the world that my affection for him remained unchanged, I would also place a light little smooch upon his toes. And I have no doubt that he would kiss mine.

You know what a lot of couples also do? They put each other’s genitals in their mouths. They also comfort each other when they’re sick, or pee with the bathroom door open and let fly their most toxic gossip and opinions about people they would never otherwise speak ill about. Being in love exposes you to the depths of a person nobody else gets to see, and it ends up being one of the most beautiful experiences a person can have. 

We’re currently in the midst of a loneliness crisis, one that transcends both age and gender. Many people would count themselves lucky to have a friend, nevermind a lover. And yet so often we see these moments of vulnerability and intimacy, even if silly and a little gross, and scoff. We think we’re above it all — “I don’t care how in love I am with someone, I’d never playfully kiss their toe!” You should be grateful to ever be graced with the chance!

To be fair, though, it is understandable to not want to see any couple perform these odd moments of affection. Part of why this has yielded such a response is because it is something most couples would do in the privacy of their home, away from the camera. Gomez and Blanco knew they were being filmed, and knew what kind of a reaction they’d get. If there’s anything about the foot kiss to critique, it’s that. A sweet and weird interaction shared between partners has been recorded and clipped for social media virality, through which none of its warmth and affection can shine. 

It might be this whole dynamic that is part of why people are so lonely, though. Seeing these exchanges and the responses they elicit only makes us all even more afraid of being caught doing anything from the norm, or displaying any emotion other than cool apathy.  From the outside, love often looks bizarre and cringeworthy and bewildering. Someday, maybe everyone who thinks Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco’s relationship is disgusting will be fortunate enough to experience it.