Sex and the Shoedog

When I started this page, I made a reference to something that I'd written once that almost got me fired. Of course, someone caught that and wanted to read it. Isn't it always the way? You shuffle papers from this pile to that stack forever, and when you want to find something you can't. I searched and searched, but couldn't put my hands on it. Then, just this morning, I came across it in a place I never would have thought to look.

I wrote this for the Nordstrom Men's Shoes Divisional Newsletter in February 2004. I had been asked by the marketing manager to take over the monthly publication just a few weeks earlier. This particular issue had a huge hole on the back page. Nothing exciting to showcase or highlight for the team. It was just as "Sex and the City" was finishing up its run. I'd seen every episode and desperately wanted to live the art. So, I channeled my inner Carrie and wrote an article to fill the space. And the thing is, I showed it to all the right people. I handed it to that marketing manager with a warning label. I told her it just barely skirted the edge. She gave it back to me the next day with two thumbs up, and the only thing my direct boss had to say about it was that he never wanted to see a picture of women's shoes in a Men's Shoes newsletter again. That was it. So I sent it out....to all the department managers, store managers, regional managers, buyers, vice-presidents....over 300 copies. It wasn't until a week or so later that my phone rang. "Hi. This is so-and-so in HR. I'm going to need a copy of...." Uh, what? Why? Turns out, that marketing manager who loved it, read it while she was driving. And my boss? He only looked at the pictures. Managers from across the country had complained. Members of our team thought I should be fired. There were meetings and sit-downs and disciplinary action.  Some people got what I was trying to say.  The people named Nordstrom did. But, it was too late for me. It was the beginning of the end as far as I was concerned. Three months later I left. I went back to more purposeful work, but I held on to this because I liked it. Because I know what I was trying to say. It doesn't mean anything anymore to anyone but me. It's a symbol of where I was and how badly I wanted to be somewhere else. It's my Bradshaw.

Sex and the Shoedog

Aahh, February. The new year is behind us, and romance is on the horizon. Roses start popping up at $60 a dozen and stock in Victoria's Secret climbs at least eight points. Women's thoughts turn to visions of candlelight and carats, while our boyfriends and husbands gather their gang and start making preliminary bets on the March Madness pools. And is there anyone out there who can honestly say that they haven't at least done the diet calculation in the head? "Let's see....Six weeks between New Year's and Valentine's Day. If I start now, that could be five pounds the first week, two every week after that...." Come on. I won't tell.

Yes it's the time for love. Time to pull out the delicious red, strapless chiffon that hides in the back of the closet, and begin this year's quest for the perfect pair of sexy sandals to accompany it. As I browsed longingly through the displays of Stuart Weitzmans and Jimmy Choos, I wondered where this connection between shoes and sex began. I mean, we're all familiar with the image of the stiletto-heeled woman taking slow, sultry steps towards an eagerly awaiting man, but where is the image of that same man sauntering toward us? I don't think I've ever noticed a guy on the street and thought to myself, "Wow. Will you look at the Bruno Maglis on that tomato...." and I know I've never asked my boyfriend to throw on his brown leather Cole Haans with the chunky heel and hop into bed. Yet, women's shoes have this sexy stigma attached to them that we all spend a fortune upholding. So I had to ask ~ Just what is it with sex and shoes?

I did a little Googling when I got back to my desk, and as it turns out sex and footwear have a long history or romance. At the turn of the 20th century, Canadian neurosurgeon, Wilder Penfield, drew a map of the brain that, for the first time, linked the area of our gray matter that is responsible for sexual activity next to the area where our feet get their most power stimulation. Coincidence? Probably...but, just think. If Dr. Penfield had more opportunity to play footsie, we may never have known how closely tied our feet are to our animal instincts. And it was psycho psychologist Sigmund Freud who believed that the way we stand affected visual sexual appeal and created erogenous zones. It's our bipedal stance, he said, that lifts us up from the ground "bringing bosom, abdomen and thighs into view." Now that I've noticed.

There's an entire volume dedicated to the sex life of the foot and shoes. William A. Rossi penned this Barnes & Noble classic, and writes that the feet are extremely sensual objects, which are often required to be hidden from view, lest they be accosted for their desirability and erotic nature. (Wait...Are we taking about the same body part here?) He declared, "The shoe is no simple protective housing for the foot, nor a whimsical decoration. It serves chiefly as a sexual covering for the foot's natural erotic character. Footwear fashion is podoerotic art."

In my lifetime I've seen hemlines rise and fall, but in lifetimes past, our grandmothers and great-grandmothers could never have been thought to posses anything so carnal as legs, feet or, dare I say, ankles. A mere glimpse would send male suitors into fits of arousal cured only by a father's shotgun and a cold shower. For hundreds of years in China women suffered in silence, binding their feet into tiny shoes so they would be considered beautiful creatures, while their men "sucked on the lotus foot and drank from their tiny shoes in lust." In lust? Would that be like asking him to slip off his tight work boots so I could sip my Cosmopolitan out of them? Or maybe seeing if he wants to suck on my instep for a while after I kick off my pumps?

Today's fashions highlight toe cleavage as the new eye candy. Mr. Blahnik took this to such heights that his shoes can be referred to by one name only - Manolos. With their lethal heels, bejeweled toes, and strappy ankles, these shoes are the pinnacle of the podoerotic art that our friend William Rossi described. Sure they make us look sexy. We know they accentuate our hip movement, and yes, that sultry walk is a major turn on, but it's only because we have to slow down our pace and take smaller steps to keep from falling over on our face and tearing a hole in our brand new La Perla stockings. Podiatrists call it the "bondage gait", and point out that many men find it so attractive because the unsure step of women make them feel more masculine.

It sounds really weird to say out loud, and certainly no one would ever admit to harboring a secret desire to be swathed in feet, but it appears that our subconscious is riddled with lascivious thoughts about small soles with high arches. It's as aphrodisiacal as eating oysters and chocolate.

Cinderella's glass slippers so fueled her prince's passion that he scoured the kingdom looking for her. Dorothy's ruby slippers brought magic and adventure to her lazy farm life. Newlyweds drive away with shoes tied to their bumper. No matter how you cut the leather, shoes, with their tough soles are, in some inexplicable way, the keepers of our tender ones. They inspire dreams. Excite imagination, and offer up the possibility of a more beautiful life. So, the next time you see a red stiletto, or a platform boot, or a pair of lace up sneakers pass your way, give yourself a moment to enjoy the show. I know I'll be paying a little bit more attention to the Bruno Magli's walking in front of me from now on...and maybe, just maybe, I might find some under the covers.