Wednesday, December 21, 2011

the paradox of high-heeled shoes

I have no problem with wearing something because it might help you get laid. So I have no problem with high-heeled shoes as a sexual aid. But why would you wear them to work - unless your job is a prostitute?

I assume that much like traditional Chinese foot-binding, high heeled shoes are meant to indicate a woman's lack of utility - her job is to be decorative. Obviously there are degrees - in most cases, anyway, high-heeled shoes don't permanently cripple a woman, the way foot-binding did. But clearly they are a form of hobbling to indicate that the woman wearing them is above manual labor or anything brutish.

A woman in high heels is a lady, too dainty and refined to allow all of her foot to come in contact with the ground. She must tippy-toe around with her heels elevated, propped up in some cases by a slender stick.

I think very high heels are grotesque and I've seen women in the summer wearing them and it makes their feet hideous, no matter how nicely they've been pedicured - the pressure exerted on a foot standing on tip-toe makes the veins on the top of the foot pop out. Ew.

But even more so, high heeled locomotion tends to be extremely loud, especially on the polished floors of office buildings. There was a woman in high heels walking down the hall behind me today and this dainty fairy on her tip toes sounded like a giant plow horse threatening to run me down. And there are times when the noise of a woman wearing high heels while walking on a hard surface actually hurts my ears. And these women seem utterly oblivious to the paradox of the stupendous clop-clopping of the refined lady.