High Heeled Shoes

From SevenOfNine: When I was a kid, someone told me that high-heeled shoes were so that women couldn't run away! ... but I'd hope that in the future humankind would abandon such forms of torture as HighHeeledShoes.

Women choose to wear them at times, not because of the appearance of the shoes, but because of the overall effect it has on the posture, which some googling will reveal has side-effects which are innately sexually attractive. So the question is, will women at some point permanently stop doing something awkward and painful even though it potentially increases attractiveness? Seems doubtful.

And yet, men have stopped wearing high-heeled boots, wide epaulets, hats and other such subconscious authority enhancers (I guess that just leaves ties). I think the chance that women will wise the hell up is lookin' mighty good ... eventually.

You simply cannot, in sane mind, be possibly discussing about the possibility of those gorgeous designers will step down, Mac in hand, from their sexy heels and become wiser in a way this seems like a GoodThing. You guys may wanna consider getting out more :)

High heels make you wobble while walking. This accents women's flanks and butt. -- DesmondMorris

Wasn't wearing high heels about creating tension in the calf muscle to make it appear more toned?

Rubbish. High heels were designed to make the wearer appear taller. The first person to wear them was a man. -- TaralDragon

That might have been the original intent of the design, but as with many designs, other reasons for adoption took precedence.

Where tall shoes are used for height, they are relatively balanced, to avoid making the wearer totter on tiptoe. Where they are for feminine enhancement, the toe is markedly lower then the heel, exaggerating the hip sway. (Legend has it that the modern high-heeled woman's shoe was invented by one of the French Queens to add sway to her hip - under the large skirts of the era, the shoes were not seen, so it appears she was more voluptuous.) -- PeteHardie

I heard somewhere that the point of high-heeled shoes was to tilt the woman's pelvis into an approximation of the doggy-style mating position. The point is that a woman wearing high-heeled shoes doesn't have to be moving to look sexier, although hip-sway may indeed be a factor. -- AndyPierce

That's very silly; it's all about how you walk in them - and it takes practice. You can either be one of these women whose massive butt and chest seem to be look for horizontal escape from each other and gravity has somehow been increased on your feet giving you a kind of chicken totter taking tiny steps or you can wear them like Naomi Campbell and SevenOfNine and learn to walk in them properly. Either way, it's all about practice how you end up looking. And the point of them is definitely to make you taller; it's that simple I think (though I'm sure there are some negative and positive side-effects on posture - depending on how you walk in them too). -- SusannahWilliams?

Although I probably should defer to your expertise, I think the point isn't so much to make your whole body taller so much as to make your legs appear longer... which obviously results in a taller body. Last time I checked, there were more men fascinated with long legs than with towering heights. At least, that's what I've gathered from watching too much What Not To Wear with my wife.

Also, the chest gets pushed forward.

What about platforms? They're a great way to be taller, without having to deal with the problems of high heels, which are many.... I love the way heels look, but since I don't yet have a professional chauffeur, mostly I don't wear them, even though I have a bunch of pairs...

I once read that a woman in HighHeeledShoes puts more PoundsPerSquareInch? on the road than an 18 wheeler does.

I heard the heel of a stiletto spiked heel shoe puts more PSI on the ground than the Empire State Building's foundations.

IonceReadThatIfYouUnscrewYourBellyButtonYourBumWillFallOff?

The common comparison is that a woman in stiletto heels is more dangerous to wooden floors than an elephant because of the small area the downward force is placed on.

In practice, a woman in stiletto heels is probably dangerous anywhere.

Somehow, surely, this must be related to BondageAndDisciplineLanguage. Maybe I'll mention it in my future book "The dominatrix and the nerd: Encouraging good software practices".

I Think Steve Martin wrote an essay on this topic: http://www.getasite.com/gj/cruelshoes.htm.