My view on acceptance

[Bootylicious]

I have read hundreds of posts on this forum and a lot of them are about the feared 'acceptance of society' and even more friends and family. I don't want to generalize but there seem to be 2 main streams of opinions:

the ones that (desperately) seek acceptance or at least tolerance and the ones that have accepted that the cure for cancer will be discovered sooner, which is also more important I think. Personally I am with the latter ones, as much as I would want it to be accepted and continue to have hope I know it's not going to happen in my lifetime.

Just a year ago, before I bought my first high heeled boots, I would consider myself in heels to be silly also. The more I started wearing them the more normal it got for me and the better I feel and think it makes me look. This makes it harder to place myself in an outsider's position and look at myself objectively. I'm now past the point of being able to understand why someone else wouldn't understand or at least accept it. To stay cautious I really have to convince myself that's still the risk I am taking.

It's also dependant on how big the change in your overall appearance will be when you start wearing any form of heels in public. For example, the other day I wore my favorite leather/jeans jacket to work for the first time. It looks cool with my stiletto boots but I don't wear it often otherwise. I am always dressed as sportively as possible to work, although still conservative, and never wear any leather accept for my dull flat shoes. When I walked in the office a female colleague complimented: Oh, what a nice jacket!, but a male colleague commented: Hé, leatherboy! I know he didn't mean bad, he's a good colleague and just not used to seeing me in clothes like this. I thought to myself: "If only you knew..." I'm a very shy person and it meant I got positive and (semi) negative attention and had to deal with that which is good for building my confidence.

My colleagues' tunnel vision demonstrated however what kind of problems I can expect when I would try to 'come out' even further. Imagine what he would say if I showed up booted and heeled like this...

Well, he probably wouldn't say anything but his lower jaw would drop on the table.

The acceptance of most people is a bit like a wooden stick, you can only bend it so far till it breaks.

However, in the village where I live there is a foreign single guy who is always riding around very relaxed on his bike wearing very shiny clothing, from head to toe. He lives in a normal neighbourhood and everybody knows and likes him and I never heard anyone talk about his strange taste of clothes or that he is probably a fetishist or gay. They don't know him any different and that makes it OK I guess. Still I wonder what would happen if he started to wear heels...

Pure fashionwise, I can only dream of ever going out in a pair of shiny black leather jeans, preferably to go with my stiletto boots and favorite jacket and still look very masculine. As a single I don't think I could get away with it without being regarded as a gay leatherboy. People would think I'd finally 'came out of the closet' which would be true but not the closet they'd assume. After so many years my friend's and family's image of me is solidly anchored so I can only hope I'll get the time and courage to make very small steps (mandatory with heels) to change that image. I'm just wondering how far I can get before I fall flat on my face. I would hate to loose the respect of the people I care about.

Take care...

[Rockpup]

Most women are not accepted when wearing 5" heels, others may not say anything but it does carry a bad stigma. Acceptance may not be our best result, but lack of reprocusion in our personal/profesional life may be the best we can hope for. Some of us have a profesional life that is not affected by our choise to wear heels, but those like myself who cannot wear heels to work due to multiple reasons including safety are unable to blend heels with workwear. Women gaining acceptance for wearing pants was a practial matter, men wearing heels is anti-practical.. and considered anti-macho. Tis the problem we face Jim

[Guest]

Even though I (a male) feel tempted to wear high heels occasionally, I feel I must refrain from doing that. I've never seen any guys wearing high heels, not even as an occasional hobby. Even disfunctional criminals know better not to wear high heels. I can't go out with these thinking I look great when I have no reason to think I do. Sure there are those in this forum who think I should wear them, but they don't neccessarily represent the majorities opinions.

[joenj]

I would like to be able to wear different shoes, with a max. heel height of 3" at work; and in town. I cannot, for the time being. I was High Heeling today (boots are 2" heels, women's ) . I think if we men can walk safely in our shoes, then we will be <<tolerated>>. If our behaviour is within the "accepted 'Framework of Standards' " where we work, than we can wear our boots OK. I can't wear 3" heels well, until I can demonstrate that I cannot trip and fall (Fall Flat On Your Face == FFOYF ) . Best regards from northern New Jersey U.S.A.