Monday, May 7, 2018

The Heels Have It!

My husband posed me a question while we were in the car: What is it I get out of wearing heels?
A straightforward and valid question. I had to really think about it before answering – and I’ll get to that answer in a little bit. The question also got me to thinking further, and its timing was more than a little coincidental. There have been a couple of discussion posts on social media on the subject of men wearing heels at leather/kink & fetish events in the past couple days. Knowing Ken as I do, I doubt he actually saw those.
To have the question asked showed a curiosity and an attempt to understand. Ironically, this is in stark contrast to some negative statements against it from so-called “community” leaders. It was a step toward accepting something that is, in his view, different. A step apparently some in a “community” that touts acceptance can’t seem to make. Change and difference can be difficult to brook, even for the most open-minded of individuals. That he was engaging in the conversation – well, I know that was difficult. I applaud his effort to understand.
Alas, I cannot say that about some people in the leather/kink collective. Not after comments I saw or heard made. Not after some of the glares I noticed hurled my way at CLAW. How ironic indeed when a “community” that has its roots in rebellion against established norms and promoting our individual sexuality and fetishes has within it leaders and loud voices that apparently have forgotten that legacy, preferring instead to preserve their own version of what constitutes “proper” leather.
In a time when there are other points of divisiveness far more important, maybe this doesn’t rate far up on the scale. However, that it’s even questioned in event spaces is symptomatic of the irrational clinging to old values and fallacies that are hurdles to the more important issues we need to overcome.
So, what was my answer you may wonder? I wear the heels because it’s a way for me to express part of who I am. I femme it up because that is as much a part of who I am as my “masculine” side. I’m not one or the other exclusively; I’m an alloy of both fused in one person. I wear the heels because I actually feel sexy in them. I wear them because it’s a way for me to be rebellious against proscribed norms of “manly” behavior. I wear them because, dammit, I like it!
I’ve said elsewhere, it took finding courage when Tugger appeared onstage at IML in heels for me to finally get beyond my own inhibitions. It was when people like Sam Brinton stood in public looking fabulous in their heels that I began to see I don’t have to be embarrassed. Being out in heels has been something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, practically since my earliest days of being out. But I got hung up somewhere along the way on the erroneous notion that this wasn’t something “leathermen” did. I got caught up in the false ideal of “leather” as a masculine construct. Hell, even as I took my first wobbly steps in stiletto heels, I worried about what others would think.
So why the looks? Why the commentary by some that they hope this is a passing thing? Does a male-identified person in stiletto heels threaten the masculine self-image that much? Does it somehow infringe on someone else’s definition of what leather and kink should be? How does my being comfortable enough to highlight both my masculine and feminine traits somehow undermine another’s comfort in the same event social space? Is it because, while I'm out there smoking a cigar, the heels make my legs look better or make my butt stand out more (hey, that’s a good thing no matter how you do it!). Is it because my wide-brimmed hat threw too much shade? I don’t know. Please tell me.
Or could it be that me being me highlights the changes that so many in my generation seem to resist at every turn? Again, please tell me. I really want to hear it.
Or course, it does not mean I’m going to change or stop what I’m doing. I was taught that leather/kink was about exploring and expressing one’s self within a safe place to do so. I was also taught that we grow and evolve as time goes forward and that we learn about ourselves every day. By default, the growth and realization is going to result in change (unless, or course, we choose to fight and deny who we are, but that is a different argument entirely). For me, I’m here to stand proud (and maybe just a little taller in my 7” knee-highs).
Sorry, the problem isn’t with me in this one. I’m me, and by every definition of leather/kink I’ve ever been taught, that’s exactly what I’m supposed to be doing.

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