heels59

Since this thread started, I ordered the book through Amazon, shipped from UK, and read it cover to cover. I don't think the author was a podiatrist, but he was an editor of several footwear publications. One thing to keep in mind is that it was written when psychiatry was obsessed with Freudian theories that everything revolves around sex. None the less, he lays out a convincing argument that the foot is a sex organ, second only to genitalia, and has been considered such for millennia. Chinese foot binding was an expression of it. The shoe, as a covering of the foot, also has sexual connotations. The long pointed toes of Mexicans' boots pointed out in a recent thread have made their cycles many times since Roman days. They represent the phallus. (You knew they were compensating for something, right?)

While the book delves into all manner of foot, shoe, and leather fetishes, with an open and frank tone, and makes clear that all of this goes back thousands of years, it does not really deal directly with men wearing women's shoes beyond sexplay. Perhaps that is a narrow subset of the broader altocalciphilia, or perhaps it isn't really so much a sexual thing at all. I'm sure it is different for each individual.

I didn't learn much about myself that I didn't already know from my own experience and from reading this forum for a few years. However there is a lot of interesting foundational background that is quite fascinating, as well as many tales and stories he has collected over the years. It's a little like reading an electronics theory book from the 1950's. On one hand it bears no resemblance to today's scene, and on the other hand it provides a foundation that it is all built on.

I've done it a few times. Its a good way to get out there and break the ice. I agree with Steve, it doesn't necessarily normalize guys in heels, but it can pull the closet guys out. I make it a point to arrive, return to the start, leave, and maybe hit a local hamburger joint in my chosen footware.

The sound can be useful too. Today i stopped at a minute market for a snack. When i approached the checkout, the girl had her back turned talking to the associate behind her, and didn't know i was there. Now i could have done the usual things, wait, clear my throat, say hello, but i didn't. Instead i just raised my foot a bit and clumped my boot heel down on the tile floor. She immediately spun around and got to work.

When I first started to go public with heels, I bought a pair, thinking they would be just like hidden heel sneakers. I wore them a few times and they are fairly stealthy, they don't look like they are raising you up, except you end up a few inches taller. If what you need is  just a few inches of height, they do that well. However, if you are here it's likely that you have some attraction toward women's shoes in general and high heels specifically. Elevator shoes won't scratch that itch. They are kind of heavy, and seem large. Compared to say hidden heel sneakers, the elevator shoes need to maintain a normal low shoe profile so the placement of the foot inside the shoe is hidden, while the women's (semi) hidden heels can both narrow and shorten slightly below the heel of the foot. The more they do, the more it becomes apparent where the foot is inside the shoe.

My single experience with www.tallmenshoes.com, was excellent, I believe they are a reputable company, the product was good quality, although the price reflected the small market segment. It's a good option for the man who is vertically challenged. It's not so good an option when the need involves altocalciphilia.

Up until 3 or 4 years ago Heels were a closet fetish for me, so I went for the highest sexiest spikes I could get. Now I'm into wearing more androgynous women's shoes openly. Before, I avoided the Easy Spirit store because they didn't carry the sexy stilettos I wanted. I called them the "old lady shoes" store. Now I find that they have a good selection of shoes that I can wear openly, and plenty in size 12. Today I picked up a pair of Cooper block heeled booties in brown for $30. I'm trying Heels2u's trick of filling the heels to make them quieter. I generally like the "thuck" sound of heels on a hard floor, but theses are pretty high and I really don't want to draw too much attention at this point.

They are roomy and reasonably comfy for a chinese made plastic shoe. I wore them to a customer's site today and probably will again tomorrow.

(stock photo in black)

http://www.easyspirit.com/on/demandware.store/Sites-easyspirit-Site/default/Search-Show?SearchSource=Simple+Search&q=cooper

Gel insole insert. It will take up space, help prevent slipping, and cushion the foot. Pumps generally need to start a bit tight to fit well when broken in

Megan is close,but he can be truthful about his lying. What he said is "I will be boiled in water"

American (pointy) football = millions of people who desperately need exercise watching 22 men who desperately need rest.

I've bid in some government surplus auctions where each bid adds 5 minutes to the end time. Totally takes sniping out of the picture

Basically.. this is what it sounds like , upstairs, in her ' office ' at 1-2am in the morning..

 

http://s233.photobucket.com/user/fridgidwench/media/MV/maiden_zps081ab420.mp4.html

Wow, that's pretty much full range sound, actually sounds like more high frequency getting through than low frequency. Typically that's the result of a decent barrier with one or more small holes in it, which is an acoustic high-pass filter.

I agree that my suggestions were all some form of compromise. It was just a thought that they may be a better compromise than recording over the middle of the day when all good musicians should be fast asleep. :>)

It sounds like you have it well under control. Do what you need to get the mass safely in place. 

You can also gain some isolation by putting the guitar amp or even just the speaker in some form of sound container. Box out a small closet with lots of mass and a tight weatherstripped door, and lots of fuzz inside which doesn't help for sound escaping but absorbs the boxy internal acoustics of the closet. Record the guitar dry and you can run it back through the amp and play with sounds and effects. If you need to hear it loud & live for playing inspiration or for feedback, then you'll have to be there with the speaker. Or get a 5 watt boutique amp that gets the sounds at reasonable volume.

Don't confuse absorption with transmission loss. 99% absorption is equivalent to a transmission loss of only 20 dB. What you didn't see behind the wedges was the poured in place concrete.

Wow, you’re not going to get those kind of levels down to inaudible. 20/20 hindsight, maybe the studio should have gone out behind the barn. First a caveat about info you may find on the internet, if it is based on a one-number STC (Speech Transmission Coefficient)  rating, it is intended for apartment or motel walls and doesn’t quite apply to your situation. STC is an average of 500, 1000, and 2000 hz, you need to design for low frequencies and the mids/highs will take care of themselves. The basic concept is two massive impervious panels not connected to each other and separated by as much airspace as practical. The slate-foam-slate thing you mentioned sounds very interesting. The wall panel on the noise source side will move some, the heavier it is the less it will move. It’s very important that its movement is not mechanically coupled to the other panel by framing, plumbing, etc. The air between the panels must compress to not transmit the panel movement. An inch or two of airspace is a very tight coupling - not good. Think about two sheets of plywood or drywall an inch apart - you can’t move one without the other moving as well. You want at least a foot of separation, two feet is much better. The structural framing members supporting these panels can occupy the space between, but they must be independent of each other and not linked in any way. Obviously they share the same earth and likely the same foundation, It’s great if they aren’t coupled at the sides or top, but usually some form of closure of the space is needed. Ideally a shell inside a shell is best, but in a retrofit you have to work with what you have. Filling the space with some form of fuzz will make only a small difference, maybe 3 dB, and then only at mid and high frequencies. I certainly wouldn’t spend much money on anything fancy. If any holes for outlets, plumbing, etc., need to be made, seal them really tight. There is a lot of pressure trapped between the walls and it would love to squirt out a little hole. In an old house, that pressure may also want to escape through floor joist spaces between floors, since they’re typically open to the walls. Sound leakage could show up at the opposite end of the house. Finally be aware of flanking paths such as open windows that can ruin an otherwise good barrier. If I followed your description, the top few feet of the studio common wall back the second floor room in question. It may be easiest to add a bulkhead inside the studio from 8 feet (or the top of the slate) up to the ceiling. Use 2 or 3 sheets of drywall for mass. Perhaps it could be angled in to add airspace volume behind it. Anything that breaks up flat parallel planes also helps the studio acoustics as well. Hope this helps.  

Now you're getting to part of what i do for a living. I need a bit more info, what are you trying to accomplish? Are recording in this room? Trying to keep sound out or in?

Any "suitcase nuke" is a dirty bomb, spewing radioactive material around with conventional explosives. You cannot reach critical mass in anything remotely near the size a man can carry. Furthermore dirty bombs have a very short shelf life, since lethal dosages of radiation require a high decay rate and thus a short half-life.

Among the many technical hobbies of my youth that I chose not to pursue as an adult is photography. Taking pictures like these is no simple matter. Even after the model is completed, you can't just place a full sized camera in the scene and click away, it will always look like a miniature scene because of the depth of field. Basically the camera, or at least the lens aperture has to be scaled down as well. In the days of film, the inherent film grain was the limiting factor. These pictures required micro-miniature digital cameras. Although I can't quite identify specifically what, something about the lighting around the car tires in the first picture looked more like studio than natural, which tipped me off that it probably wasn't really outdoor.

I've seen photos of extremely elaborate and very realistic scale models. Perhaps that's it

I’ve been wearing my Airwalk Wyatt wedge sneakers everywhere, to church, to the fair, to move furniture, to visit relatives. They are extremely comfortable. My daughter, home from college for the weekend, noticed and commented on them. She called them “skater-boy” shoes, and thought it was cute that dear old 50-something dad is so square, he doesn’t even care that they are the fashion statement of a totally different group. I don’t think she figured out that they actually are womens shoes and that dad’s fashion statement is even further out there than she imagined.

http://www.payless.com/store/product/detail.jsp?catId=&subCatId=&skuId=133319065&productId=73335&lotId=133319&category=&catdisplayName=Womens

JeffB,

Like many others I've been following your jaunts. Lead on.

I just couldn't put my finger on what it was about your pictures that bothered me, but I finally got it. Dude, you need to smile. Look like you're enjoying it as much as I think you are. You're probably just thinking about the blinking self-timer, but your expression says "YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT?!?"

I don't doubt that on the street you come across much more pleasant. Try to add that to the photo. Smile. Flirt. Play it.

Can't wait to see 200 :fine:

I’ve just done the flying in heels thing for the first time. My wife knows some of my doings, but doesn’t want to see it at home, so I changed at the small regional airport. I parked in the long-term lot, threw my guy-sneakers on the car floor where they stayed for the duration. The plan was heels under ordinary guy jeans, tee shirt. I pulled on the knee highs and my J-Renee pumps with a very slender 4.5" stiletto.

JRenee

I had foolishly worn these for a Walk-a-Mile-in-her-Shoes event and killed the original heel tips. I replaced them with the smallest metal tips I could find but they’re still a bit big. So I’m out of my car with my bags, and realize that the shuttle bus had slipped up to the nearby stop unheard. Now I’m comfortable walking in heels and can get along quite well, but it had been a few weeks and I felt out of practice. I had to hurry the hundred feet or so while the bus waited, and stepped aboard nervous, puffing and maybe shaking slightly from adrenaline. I took a seat, the one other passenger didn’t appear to notice anything, but as we pulled out the middle aged female driver called over her shoulder “I like your shoes” “Thanks” At security the heels went in the tub right on top of everything else, and although I had to interact with two different agents to pull out my liquids and run the bags through again, there was no reaction to the shoes. Guys must fly in stilettos every day. No noticeable reactions waiting at the gate or on the plane. The first leg of the flight was uneventful, although it took a while to get over the jitters, which was unusual, since I’ve been out lots of places this way and really don’t care what anyone thinks. Actually these days I’m a lot less concerned with trying to see if anyone notices. I had a good book in the Kindle and kept my nose in that most of the time. Between people not seeing, people not caring, and me not bothering to spy, I noticed amazingly few reactions. The transfer at Chicago O’Hare was a chore. I had 75 minutes and spent 3/4 of it walking between the gates that seemed to be a half mile apart. Had to be careful, the metal tips can be slippery on tile floors. As I was walking on a moving walkway, enjoying the nice loud metal to metal clicking, a woman walking beside me on the none-moving floor noticed and commented on my shoes, although I couldn’t understand what she said because of the noisy concourse and this incessant clicking. I said something about enjoying the challenge. She stayed beside me a while and quite obviously stared. 20/20 hindsight, I wish I had hiked up my pant leg to show them off. At the end of the walkway, I carefully slowed down to step off and she zoomed away. The rest of the trip was uneventful. The destination was a motel across from Mall of America in Minneapolis, MN. I had a 3 day conference with professional associates so I ditched the stilettoes and wore my Easy Spirit wedges

or Lane Bryant booties while there.

The Mall is an amazing place with numerous stores with a fair selection of size 12 and 13 women’s shoes, a worthy destination. I bought a pair of AirWalk wedge sneakers in size 13 from Payless, which hopefully will replace my size 12 Brash wedge sneakers that are just a bit too snug.

The conference ended at 5 pm and my flight wasn’t until noon the next day. Since many of the attendees drove, flew later that night or early, I decided to wear the stilettoes right from the hotel. Coming around the corner to the hotel front desk, I spotted one of the presenters, someone I definitely didn’t want to come out to. I made a quick U-turn and changed behind the elevators. He wasn’t on my shuttle to the airport, so I changed back into heels again as soon as I could. The flights home were mostly uneventful. I had a good amount of interaction with TSA, with a stewardess changing seats so a man and wife could sit together, waiting for my bag on the Jetway, etc, with no mention or unusual reactions. I did get a heel caught in a door track on the airplane’s bathroom door. I just calmly stepped out of the shoe, bent down and picked it out. All in all, it was a great experience, but I would recommend shoes that are quite comfortable for an extended walk, and perhaps heels with a width dimensions on the order of 1/2 inch (12mm), rather than less than 1/4 inch (6mm) When I have the opportunity, I will probably do it again.  

The cold pack doesn't contain pure water and may not expand much, also it never gets really hard when frozen. I never had much luck with water bags, but some have. I've used this high heel stretcher with pretty good results when width is the problem. Length usually can't be changed much. http://www.amazon.com/Womans-High-Heel-Professional-Stretchers/dp/B0091BF92I/ref=sr_1_4?s=shoes&ie=UTF8&qid=1377543051&sr=1-4&keywords=shoe+stretcher+for+high+heels

Kilty, If you were a dirty old man with a fetish for sexy women's clothes and wanted to go outside the house where would you go? What would you do if someone called you out? You played the role perfectly. If on the other hand, you like to wear modest and appropriate well-fitting comfortable clothes that happen to be from the other side of the aisle, you'll go about your normal daily activities with little thought about what someone might think. How you get to that point is a process. Baby steps can include more androgynous clothes, or semi-hidden items. I started with heels hidden under jeans, then dabbled with skirts a bit. The only way to know what you like is to try it and see if you like it. Some things are an acquired taste. Tastes change over time. It's human nature to get bored with the status quo and want to push it a little. The goal is to get to where you wear whatever you want, when and where you want, with little concern for others' opinions. Some here have achieved that. Other keep on counting jaunts as special occasions, instead of integrating their awesome fashion sense into their everyday lives. (What's up with that, JeffB?) Some like me are only comfortable showing that side to strangers, so it's only a travel pleasure. From the perspective of my personal experience, you were hit with an unusually difficult situation, well out of the norm. Try that outfit where a brief fleeting encounter is normal, putting gas (Petrol) in the car, or running into the quick-mart for a cup of coffee. Next stop is the shopping mall when it's busy. Few people will even see what's in front of their eyes, fewer still will care, fewer still will bother to make something of it.

I'm very interested in this conversation. I'd like to extend it a bit by asking whether shame isn't a tool of the conscience. If we destroy or ignore shame, do we risk disarming the conscience?

many preppers actually prepare for any emergency where a temporary or permanent loss of infrastructure can and probably will happen at some point.

A few decades back a survivalist group did a little intellectual exercise to determine the safest place on earth to live. They looked at everything they could think of, from geo/political stability, to weather patterns to airline flight paths. Anything that might cause harm was examined, weighed, assigned a probability, etc. They eventually settled on a "perfect" location, though no one actually moved there. Good thing, too, since a short time later that nirvana was buried under hundreds of feet of volcanic ash at the base of Mt. St. Helens.

I've been in these for the last two days working in a Christian school. Not a second look, people don't see what's right in front of their eyes. They are comfortable and easy to walk in, soft and quiet. I only wish they were a bit wider, my feet do get a bit sore after a long day.

http://www.payless.com/store/product/detail.jsp?catId=&subCatId=&skuId=128474060&productId=72596&lotId=128474&category=&catdisplayName=Women