<My remark was regarding lotus feet, not foot binding.
Do I read you wrong or do you draw a relation beween lotus feet snd foot binding? I did not refer to foot binding. >

I would say most people with a passing knowledge of Asian History would certainly link the phrase 'lotus foot' with the Chinese practise of footbinding - as no doubt Nisey's links established.

But the use of the phrase 'lotus foot' would depend on the time and place (culture) in which it is being used.

And there was obviously an error in my orginal post when I said
'However in Japan and esp Japan , you have the 'lotus feet' idea.. small feet (hence foot binding in China), and the foot was seen are an erotic thing"

'However in Japan and esp Japan " does not make sense.

Denisey, you have posted four links on foot binding but so far, after some browsing, I have not found anything on lotus feet" other than "every step a lotus" in one of them.
Could you maybe post a quote from on of them?

Foot binding
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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"Lotus Feet" redirects here. For the song, see Real Illusions: Reflections.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot_binding
Also from the same page:
<When foot-binding was popular and customary, women and their families and husbands took great pride in tiny feet that had achieved the desired lotus shape. This pride was reflected in the elegantly embroidered silk slippers and wrappings girls and women wore to cover their feet. Walking on bound feet necessitated bending the knees slightly and swaying to maintain the proper movement. This swaying walk became known as the Lotus Gait and was considered sexually exciting by men. Later, the Manchu women who were forbidden to bind their feet, and who were supposedly envious of the Lotus Gait, invented their own type of shoe that caused them to walk in a swaying manner. They wore 'flower bowl' shoes, on a high platform generally made of wood or with a small central pedestal. In fact, bound feet became an important differentiating marker between Manchu and Han women.

In Taiwan, foot-binding was banned by the Japanese administration in 1915.

The recent Chinese author Feng Jicai's (b. 1942) novel Three Inch Golden Lotus presents a satirical picture of the movement to abolish the practice.

In her novel Marrying Buddha, Wei Hui mentions foot binding and the "golden lotus" several times as in the story Chinese cinderella.

Jicai Feng (translated from the Chinese by David Wakefield), The Three-Inch Golden Lotus (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1994).

Peter M Austin, Foot Binding - Lotus Feet are not just spun Mysoginist Femanism (Peter M Austin, London, 2008)

Dorothy Ko, Every Step a Lotus: Shoes for Bound Feet (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001). Catalogue of a museum exhibit, with extensive comments.

Howard S. Levy, The Lotus Lovers: Prometheus Books, New York, 1992

(these are all from the wiki page ^ )

Moving on to the wikigender page:
www.wikigender.org/index.php/Footbinding

According to historical accounts it was around 970 A.D., during the rule of Li Yu, when the custom of footbinding began. The ruler's favorite consort, Yao-niang, performed a dance atop a golden lotus pedestal that had been specially built. She had wrapped her feet in long strips of silk cloth, much like a ballerina in toe shoes today. Li Yu was so overwhelmed with the beauty of her movement as she danced that other court maidens followed suit, and "Golden Lotus" became a euphamism for their delicately bound feet.

Lotus Feet and Lotus Gait

There was a great pride in the tiny feet once the foot had developed into the lotus shape and this pride was shown in the slippers girls and women made to cover their deformed feet. Walking on these feet necessitated bending the knees slightly and swaying to maintain the proper movement. This swaying walk became known as the Lotus Gait and was considered most exciting to men.

Shall I continue?
Okay :)

This link:
www.gather.com/viewArticle.action
The title of the article reads:
China's "Golden Lotus Feet" - Foot-binding Practice

This link:
www.movingimages.ca/catalogu...ding.html
presents "FootBinding: Search for the Three Inch Golden Lotus "
""If you love your daughter, bind her feet; if you love your son, let him study," or so goes the old Chinese saying. Chinese-Canadian filmmaker Yue-Qing Yang returns to her birthplace to unravel the secrets of footbinding, an ancient Chinese custom that saw a sculpted three-inch foot become the feminine ideal. In interviews with aging Chinese women, including her own mother and aunt, Yue-Qing begins to grasp the complexity of this once widespread practice."

Sufficient?

<In American English, there is an idiom called "moving the goalposts.">

This is an excellent phrase.. we use it in business all the time...

you mean, an equivalent to something like this?
"Accusations of this form of abuse tend to occur when there are unstated assumptions that are obvious to one party but not to another. For example, killing all the fleas on a cat is very easy without the usually unstated condition that the cat remain alive and in good health."