April 17th, 2010 by admin

The foot: an interesting part of the human anatomy. When we’re born, they take our footprints, people count our toes and tickle our soles to hear that wonderful baby gurgle. At that amazing age babies can actually take hold of their feet to chew reflectively on their own toes. Long before we’re walking, our parents are cramming them into tiny little leather Oxfords, hiking boots or even tiny running shoes, I guess because they’re just so darned cute. Once we do start walking, we take our feet for granted. They get us where we want to go, and that’s just fine.

But once we’re grown and trying to fulfill our sexual destiny, we become aware of feet as aesthetic accessories. Turns out, they are more than just balancing tools, locomoting appendages. Feet have the surprising capacity to be extremely cute, or they can be downright hideous. Women’s feet are usually nicer than men’s, and the foot fetish is a common obsession among men. In fact, China once made the foot the primary object of female sexual beauty, subjecting women to footbinding because tiny feet were considered the most attractive. We still hold to the ideal of tiny feet, which explains why it’s so hard to find women’s shoes in wider that “B” width. It also describes pointy-toed shoes, stilettos and other fashionable footwear that makes your legs look wonderful, but can turn toes into what one author described as “scrambled monstrosities”.