Histiletto

I'm sorry that the social programming has caused so many guys to think wearing what they have come to like is detrimental or at least hurtful to the others they may cause to notice. Females, by social decree are suppose to be the weaker sex, but they seem to be able to wear whatever they like with out any notion they are harming others (which they aren't). So why are men so afraid of being seen doing what they want to do? Are they afraid of hurting the ones that say they love them. Wouldn't those same people be happier knowing their loved ones are happy with who they are, rather than learning later it was all an act just to win their favor. When are men going to learn how to be responsible for who they are and not what others tell what and how to be? If we have to put on a show to be accepted by those who say they love us, what do they have love for? Your compliance with their expectation. Unconditional love is a foreign concept to most people, because we have been taught love has to do with letting others control us. Parents have the responsibility to show and teach their children how to enjoy/deal with living and make the best of their lives by choosing the right paths. Once the children are mature enough to make their own decisions, that part of the parent's obligation is complete. However, society continues trying to make our personal decisions for us. This has never been part of the stewardship of society. They don't and can't know the feelings and desires of every individual. The way things have been set up is like a "one size fits all" kind of thing. Each person has their own set of talents and tastes, which means there are so many different personalities, one size can't fit more than the groups of people that are satisfied to let others run their lives and that are scared when others seem to disrupt the way things are by following unauthorized or uncondoned paths or stereotypes. As for men wearing footwear labeled for women, this is one of the ways society has created to control what they consider appropriate, which can be changed when enough men wear their choice of heels openly and regularly. The market wouldn't be able to grow fast enough for the immediate demand.         

Yes there is something to be said about well worn high heels, but this looks more like abuse. Then again, they did hold up quite well under the circumstances. I'd have thought the spike heels would have broken or at least bent their lower shafts. There are rugged high heels that are better made for laborious work of manually heavy construction jobs. Sydheel posted his wearing a pair of tan boots on the 4th of January, 2016 from the land down under thread that you might consider an option to wear other than demolishing a pair of spike heel pumps.

It's ironic that women can dress in men's wear with heels fashionably, but when men wear heels with men's wear then they are considered cross dressers. To change public opinion or attitudes so that men will be fashionably correct is for more men to openly wear their choice of heels and the attire that fits their tastes. If that delves into a socially regarded feminine look, then remind them that women aren't changing into men from what they wear.   

Let's do a bit of brain storming. First of all the heels are what? 2 to 2.5 inches high, which are slightly higher than most men's footwear, but lower than the common height of 4 inches. They aren't killer high heels by any standards. They are perfect for getting around, should you have to be on your feet a lot. So they meet the practical expectations. Let count this as a positive. Next, the snake skin look is a bit exotic and the neutrally gray coloring helps to subdue the animal effect. Such coloring is also good for blending in with the other colors of jeans and pants. Another positive! The pointed toes are attractive features, but haven't been common on most men's footwear, unless you wear cowboy boots. The court shoe or pump styling is more tailored to the shape of the foot than the massive look of the present male footwear and the styling presents a simple and better streamlined profile that is more pleasing to behold. The pump design offers the option to easily slip the shoes off and on or even change footwear should you want or need to do so. Such features make pumps more convenient and alluring. People need to understand that men want to wear attractive items according to their tastes, just as much as women are known for.  

When I was in grade school, several million years ago, there was a pamphlet flyer from the educational media of our school district that displayed a group of four or five guys in a band setting wearing what is called today ballerina styled flats. They each had on a black suit, white dress shirt & black tie ensemble, and no socks. So the black velvet flats were very apparent. I can't remember the extent to how much my other classmates reacted, because I really WANTED that to become the trend, but the matter was gone like water on a ducks back as far as they were concerned. I kept the article for the longest time, but as things have a way of being lost or filed with other things over the years, I can't say what happened to it. The world has changed over the years, especially the last thirty. Sexual orientations, alternative lifestyles, and movements revolting against social attitudes and practices, such as everyone's civil rights have caused people to reconsider their understanding of others. The idea of guys in high heels is not that far out there now. As more people are exposed to guys wearing heels, such sightings will become commonplace or even expected once the wearer is so diligent. What a person wears is not as big of a deal as it once was. A lot the restraint is being conjured in our own minds, because we think we'll be perceived as someone who is morally perverted and a fashion oddity. You know in your own mind, wearing high heels is a choice not a social degenerating act of principles. So how is it a perversion. As far as fashion is concerned, people are their own experts as to what they like. Some designer or market inventory can't get you to like their wares if your tastes for items are different than their products. A while back, WalMart sold disposable razors in yellow for men and pink for women. The yellow razors were in stock longer than the pinks. So when the yellows were finally gone, Walmart didn't restock them. The inventory was changed to sell only the socially considered feminine colored razors. We have the power to change the market to offering the type of high heels we want by purchasing and wearing them openly. That is how the fashion industry and society works. Yes there are still people that want women to only wear dresses instead of jeans and there will be those who won't care for the look of men wearing heels, but both looks are attained as the sightings became commonplace. When you need to be out and about, but you don't want to change out of your heels, it's your natural self trying to be the person you really want to be and the person you want other people to recognize. It's harder to maintain secrets when they are desires in need of the satisfaction to be open, because you have to make extra effort to hide and then you stress that your secret(s) will be revealed (as your inner self wants to have that freedom) 

There are so many satisfying benefits over the cons in wearing high heels, certainly life without heels would be more mundane and bland. A cold drink of mountain stream water on a hot day is most satisfying, but having the options of an ice cold soda or a thick ice cream milkshake of your favorite flavor would be out of this world - fantastic. High heels are my milkshake of footwear.

At this point, I would like to add that high heels will only raise your height the amount that your ankles are raised. Platforms create a higher level of surface you walk on, but it is the ankle height from that surface level that increases your tallness. As an example: a 4" heel, depending on the sizing, will only raise the ankles around 2.5". A 5" heel will only add another quarter to a half inch over the 2.5", because the positioning of the ankle is sent more forward than up. A 6" heel will raise the ankle even less than a 5", so the maximum ankle height from the surface, floor or platform, is most likely less than a 3" rise. I think the styled slope of the high heel sole is one of the aesthetic features that captures our lusty gaze. For some high heel enthusiasts, the steeper the slope, the greater the attraction. There's usually a trade off in the comfort factor to wear steeper sloped heels, though. Yet, I have some higher heels that are just as or more comfortable than some of my lower heels. Take for instance my Italia Boutique Damen High Heel Pumps:

are more comfortable than my Steven Madden Mikka Pumps:

Great post, Mlroseplant and thanks for the idea of getting a walking meter to encourage me to be a more aggressive distance heeler.  

I have some BeBe Jazzie Boots and some pairs of Dolce Vita & BeBe Rio 8 Pumps of similar styling (shown below) with slightly thinner heels than your Vera Wang Velma Boots. They have 5.25" heels with .75" thick platforms, which makes them 4.5" equivalent high heels. I have enjoyed wearing these heels so much that I have worn off a few heel tips. With the patent leather cap pieces on the toes of the pumps, under a pair of jeans they look a lot like men's footwear until the heel shape and height are noticed. It's amusing to watch people take the extra time to really look and discover my footwear is high heeled.

Platforms have been around a <l-o-n-g> time. I can remember seeing some World War II posters with women wearing a type of .5" to 1" platforms. In the 60's, there were the Go-Go Boots, which turned me off. Then in the 70's & 80's, the platform heels were everywhere on many men and women alike, but the look was tied too much with a certain pop culture that didn't continue to support it. The present trend started around the end of the twentieth century (1900's). Most of these platforms were carry-overs from the 80's, with flat blocks under the toe boxes and hardly any contouring to accommodate a person's walking. They looked clumpy and cloddish. Then shortly after the turn of the twenty first century, high heel manufacturers started molding the platforms, making them somewhat more aesthetically appropriate so that the wearer's feet didn't stick out like sore thumbs. Up until this time, I wasn't in favor of wearing most any platform footwear, but this improved look brought me around to trying a few styles and brands. Two to four inch platforms were everywhere at first, but some providence took precedence along with a bunch of ankle injuries and falls, which helped to lessened the platform thicknesses to 1.5" or thinner. Now I have a fair variety of what I consider attractive platform stiletto pumps that I accent my outfits from time to time. I know I have posted a couple of them already in other comments.  

Although my feet are with in the limits of most retail high heel inventories, a lot of the time the stock for the heels I desire is sold out before I get a chance to even see them, so I'm forced to go on-line anyway. Even then, the chance I can find them becomes very slim. I wish there was a way to pre-order the pair of heels or at least have a type of wish/want list that manufacturers could look at to run another batch for those who really want them. This could also include the sizing. To me it sounds like a win win process, even though all the problems would still have to be dealt with. They sell their products and the consumers get what they want with a lot less waste to worry about. Mass production has provided us with a lot of unwanted or at least unsold items that have to be considered into the cost of business. If high heels could be produced from a demand type of list, their initial retail costs could be even lower, because the waste wouldn't be such a deficit.   

As you have alluded, the idea of wearing super high heels sounds great at first notion, but most of them are actually 4" heels with a lot of platformed height added. Personally, I only want platforms on heels after my higher or maximum height has been reached. Putting platforms on lower heels only makes them look more massive and tends to destroy the desirable styling high heels were meant to project. At least, that is my opinion.

As people wear the outfits they have chosen and in this case high heeled outfits, they are following the natural process of adornment as it is meant to happen. With what and how a person covers and adorns their physique is suppose to be up to them. It actually doesn't matter what others may think or say, they are just another perspective. Their reasons for trying to help may be well intended, but other people (society) are (is) still trying to control everyone's look with the programmed "one-size fits all" stereotyped ideal. In the "free" cultures of the world, a number of females have knocked down many barriers and have given the necessary effort to wear whatever they choose. Their accomplishments have helped to restore the natural order of using their personal agency to choose how they want to appear to others. However, there are still a lot of women and men, who are stuck on or are comfortable with the social traditions as society has set them, which means they continue to let others decide what their choice in adornments entail. This is also their right, but to enforce this upon everyone is still against the natural order of how our personal agency was intended to perform.

By the way, I have acquired these 4.5" stilettos to accent my male appearance. They look great with a shirt and a pair of jeans.

Hi! Danni and welcome, 

Wearing extremely high arched and high heels is a great accomplishment and you have the envy of many heelers. I have and wear 6" heels from time to time, but to walk in them for any lengthy period and distance would not be seen as graceful exhibitions. People have limits that are beyond their control as to how high they can or should go.

Our definition of gender was developed by people, in other words it is man-made. It takes things to be true that are inaccurate and actually misunderstood. For instance: sex and gender are synonymously used. Ones sex endowment is defined by that person's organs for their part in the process of human reproduction, while gender is the classification of human behaviors, mannerisms, and personality. These classifications were divided into three groups: masculine, feminine, and neuter. Since neuter is hardly ever used in such considerations of humanity, the two others are the dominant categories. It's obvious the creators of these separations drew their conclusions from the male and female personas as they understood the people in their era or period of civilization. Under these conditions, social ideals were developed to support their conclusions. All the standards, rules, and laws have been crafted to promote their gender concept, so that people would have to comply with the same social dictates. So when any variations of masculine women or feminine men gained social notice, they had to hide who they actually were and learn how to show the type of people society had been programmed to expect or risk being persecuted, exiled, imprisoned, or even murdered.

From what we know of sex and gender now, this traditional way of thinking has caused many people to be unjustly treated just for being who they are. So as an example, when women want to wear the pants and men want to wear the stiletto heels, they are visually expressing their natural human agency, which doesn't make them perverters of society. It's the gender inaccuracies that have been programmed into our thinking that causes people to misunderstand who and what people really are.

Thanks for sharing your heeling ventures. They have been inspiring.  

2 hours ago, subtle said:

I've got one little story about my first ever shopping experience.

i was really nervous but I managed to make my way down to a Payless just down from my hotel. I wandered in and walked an aisle or 2 before I found the right sized section, lucky for me this was right beside the men's shoes of similar size which made me less nervous, I pretended to look at them when others were around. After a while I found some black round toe wedge slings that would fit and finally gave in and picked up the box and headed for the counter. The assistant wasn't there but she approached and some other assistant had left previous items on the counter. She opens one with intent to organise it off to the side, but jokingly she lifts out some small pump and says "guess these aren't yours" with a smile on her face. I smiled and said stuttered "no", meanwhile thinking they're much too small and handed her my box of wedges. I don't think she even hesitated when she opened the box and rang them up. There was a feeling of thrill, heart pounding, to which I can't explain.

i got home and all I could think of was her comment then handing over a the shoes I was buying, and had a little chuckle.

s

Had the pumps been a choice for you, I wonder what her reaction would have been, had you said no, but followed with "would you have them in a size (#)?"

Welcome back, rlamb,

Once guys, who love to wear high heels have experienced life after the bullet, they find the value of life so much richer and they wish they had gotten there sooner. However, as the saying goes: "To everything there is a season, a time, and a place." We have the power to determine our own destiny and we can bolster and/or encourage those around us to live better while achieving their dreams also, as they see us striving to be better and soaring in our high heels, of course.

Hey! subtle,

I'm happy that you want to join us. Your desire to wear heels is a natural human trait. Society has tried to limit who wears them, but they don't have control over what a person thinks, feels and has the taste for. By gaining the courage to throw off the man-made shame society is trying to promote upon guys seeming to invade the female side of attiring, you will experience the real joy of freedom in wearing the footwear you are choosing. I'm sure your aware that women have chosen to wear men's items, so why can't men wear items generally found in the women's areas.  

Hey! highheeladz,

Welcome back and I'll be looking forward to reading your comments.

Hey! dianiheels,

Thanks for wanting to join with us and it seems your ability to carry on a conversation in English is very good. If you haven't noticed already, there are people from all over the world posting their perspectives, experiences, and activities on wearing high heels. A lot of us HHP members are males with the same type of feelings to wear high heels you are expressing. I'll be looking forward to reading your comments.  

As often as I've viewed arrays of men in high heels pictures, it makes me wondered why we aren't actively regaled with media reports and/or advertisements citing or promoting this look for men. Then I'm reminded of the world's attitude towards such activities.

Individuality is a natural fact of life, but the way people have been taught to approach life, often curtails it. The worst of this situation is most people are under the understanding that society has always had control over what individuals could choose to adorn their appearance for social activities and they just accept it. I have no way of knowing the perspectives of other people and I'm fairly sure others have just as limited an access as to all of my thoughts and feelings. For society to determine what we should choose, directly ignores our individualism and goes against the natural laws that give each of us the freedom and right to decide our own personal appearance.

Fun times are had by all when I've been able to strike up conversations with others who are also shoe shopping and curious as to why I'm wearing high heels and shopping for more.  Especially, when I'm wearing heels taller than 4.5 ". They usually tell me that my heels are too tall for them and then they ask "why I wear heels at all?" Depending on the situation, my answer is: Cause heels are the only footwear I've ever wanted to wear, even though everybody else was taught to expect males could not have such feelings or the usual - "cause I want and choose too!" The only thing I find difficult when shopping for heels is in self-service stores at having to manipulate around other customers trying on the footwear while they're blocking the whole aisle, which is denying me direct access to the next pair I want to try on. 

It has brought a lot of joy to read the comments of most high heeling experiences from the threads in our HHP forum. Some are so inspiring and emotionally appealing that they are often recalled when motivations are welcomed pick-me-ups. It has sadden me to find there are heelers, both men and women, that have moved or passed on and don't or can't continue to regale us with their input and insight, but I know everything has its time and season.

In the spirit of show and tell, I have also gotten to experience some dental care. It involved three office visits. The first was to be examined as to the severity of my mouth problems, which got identified as a cracked molar. The second was around a three hour session to prepare the molar for crowning, which was a bit harder on the pocket book, but in being numbed I was able to watch the ceiling mounted television as the dentist and the assistant grinded and vacuumed away. Then two weeks later, the third visit initially inserted the crown which took about forty-five minutes to an hour, once I got into the dental chair from the patient's lobby.

Here is my footwear for all three visits.

A pair of Jimmy Choo Eros Platform Pumps with the relative heel height of five inches. Now, these were quite visible throughout each session as my body laid reposed in the dental chair with my feet and heels propped up on the cushion, which was about the same height as my hips. Would you believe nothing was ever mentioned or acknowledged about my heels? The only reference close was to be careful walking after the procedure of the second visit was completed with my mouth and jaw still numb, I got off the chair and slightly stumbled through a couple of steps until I gained my bearing. Now that I think of it, there seemed to be a few people who seemed to pass by my cubical as I waited for the dentist, but that may have been part of normal procedure as they did their job. Anyway, that was another heeling experience with little to no reaction. I probably got more attention from the people going to other offices in the complex as I entered and left the dentist office, but still nothing I can verify. 

I doubt your girlfriend sees herself in the roles of a dominatrix as you seem to want to put her in. Taking a lead from my understanding of society, she thinks you are some kind of sissy and perverted sole. Talking with her and showing how much you care for her are good ways to begin clearing and restoring any of the meaningful relationship you had before the confusion of her discovery. Honesty and being true to her and yourself will bring a better understanding. As freestyle75 points out, your priorities will determine your relationship's continuance. I wish the best for both of you.

Hey! Puffer, 

I would like the Rosa brand, if it wasn't for the way over extension of the pointed toes. Pumps with short pointed toes are more pleasing to wear and behold in my opinion. The longer toes would cause me to worry about having to take extra precautions for not bending, creasing, or mashing the points. Going up the stair and having to stand close to someone in narrow path ways would mean agonizing periods of concern and kneeling down or laying in the prone position would be absolute no-no's while wearing the over extended pointed toe boxes. One of the reasons I like to wear high heels is that they decrease the projected length area my feet cover. The extra long pointed toes take that advantage and look away.  

Thanks! Guys. Actually, it doesn't matter if any one else doesn't accept my heeling. When they do though, the relationships will be more truthful, because they will know more about my concerns for their achieving happiness and goals/dreams. Since wearing high heels is one of our passions, may we always be able to wear the best of our desires.