Shyheels

Sure - there are people who dress up as Civil War soldiers and Napoleonic War soldiers and those who go to the various mediaeval jousting tournaments held at English Heritage castles around the country each year and yes, to them, such an activity would be a pastime or hobby. Absolutely. I'm just talking about people who roll out of bed in the morning, get dressed and go off to do their daily routines, dressed however best fits their sense of style, personality and mood for the day. That's not a hobby or pastime or costume; that's just getting dressed. The more people - especially here on HHP - persist in seeing wearing heels as something 'special' or a hobby, the less likely it is ever to be accepted by mainstream society.

Again, you're assigning motives to wearing heels that are highly speculative and rely on a point of view that wearing them is in some way a form of costume, a bit of dress-up, or play-acting. Is it not possible, in your view, for a man simply to put on - routinely - a pair of heels, as he would his jeans, coat or tie, and go about his everyday activities? Must wearing heels inevitably be 'a display'? One could just as easily make the claim that any article of clothing we wear makes some form of statement about ourselves - the pinstripe suit says something different than the tweed sport coat, the open-collar shirt versus the tie , Levi jeans as opposed to Tesco ones, the style of watch we wear, brogues versus chukkas, etc. Unless you're Beau Brummel, getting dressed isn't the prelude to some kind of promenade. Nor is it a hobby or a pastime. It's simply getting dressed.

Well, I get up in the morning and intentionally put on jeans. They do not form themselves upon me. I intentionally put on a shirt, socks and (usually) boots when I head out the door. I select what colour shirt I will wear - intentionally. And I intentionally wear matched socks rather than just reach into a bureau drawer and grab two sight unseen. Does all this deliberation make my getting dressed a pastime? A structured leisure activity? Hardly. We all of us get dressed in some form or other every day. It is hardly a pastime or leisure activity. It is part of daily life. Furthermore, why do you use this loaded term 'parade' to describe the way someone wears heels - deliberately parading. That sounds awfully censorious to me. Certainly judgemental. Can they not, in your view, simply wear stilettos? Just as they would any other style of footwear? Is that an impossibility even to imagine?

Why? Would you describe wearing jeans as a pastime? Wearing pink shirts as a pastime? I might chose to idle away an afternoon at a pavement café whilst wearing a Panama hat, but I would hardly call wearing a Panama hat a pastime. Would anyone? Seriously? Is getting dressed or wearing clothes to you a structured leisure activity? Hats, shirts, jeans...whatever; it is utterly no different with ones choice of footwear. People need to stop making a big thing of this if they ever want heel wearing to be accepted. You can be damned sure that when women decided to embrace the wearing of trousers, they didn't go about it sneakily, using contrived terms such as ''hobby' or 'pastime' to describe the wearing of them, or consider themselves to be in costume. They simply put on trousers and got on with it, and made the look their own.

Very similar memories here. My bicycle enlarged and informed my world. I too collected the free road maps from the service stations and imagined myself taking all sorts of journeys. I remember the thrill of riding down to the village and buying those 10-cent glass bottles of Coke or whatever, drinking them in the porch of the general store, our legs dangling, and the feeling of liberation of being out and about in the world. Much better times to be a child.

Dorset Naga

Capsicum

Goulash

I would say that is certainly a positive development - a measure of acceptance. Hopefully something to build upon

And good for reaching the higher shelves!

Beef

You are still wearing them - it is still your taste and style. It doesn’t matter if you wear them in your office at home or whilst hosting the Oscars, it is still a matter of your own personal styling. Not a hobby. Collecting coins is a hobby. If you were collecting sets of high heels, as a collector, in a similar vein as a coin collector, that collection might be a hobby but simply fancying heels as a fashion accessory would not be isn’t any more than wearing jeans would be.

I like the round toe as well. Hard to find paired with a stiletto heel

Yet another telling from the queer perspective does not exactly advance the cause of broad acceptance of men in heels. The worthy thing about the Vogue article was that it wasn’t told from the queer perspective. Deepening the connection between being gay and wearing heels isn’t terribly helpful for opening up the broader community to the idea of wearing heels.

Ranch