THE SHOE FETISHFor most of us, a shoe is simply something that stops us from getting home with our feet completely destroyed. For other people, however, it can become a powerful object of desire. Not necessarily because they want to have sex with a stiletto heel —although the internet is always ready to prove that absolutely anything is possible— but because
the brain has an extraordinary ability to load objects that are not inherently sexual with erotic meaning.
A shoe is not entirely separate from the body. It covers it, retains its shape, changes its posture and alters the way a person walks. High heels visually lengthen the legs, lift the buttocks, encourage the hips to sway and can turn an ordinary entrance into a full-blown statement of intent.
Desire may begin at the foot, but it rarely ends there.
There is also the appeal of what remains hidden. A shoe encloses a part of the body that stays out of sight for most of the day. And eroticism has always got along particularly well with anything that is suggested, concealed or never completely revealed. Sometimes, slowly removing a shoe can create more tension than taking off a much more intimate garment, because
arousal does not depend solely on how much is shown, but on everything our imagination builds around it.
Psychoanalysis has interpreted the shoe as a sexual symbol associated with penetration, femininity, domination or even as a symbolic substitute for a part of the body.
Modern psychology tends to view the matter in slightly less dramatic terms. Desire can also be learned through association: an intense sexual experience, someone we found attractive, a smell, a texture or a particular image can become connected in our memory. If a pair of shoes was present during especially exciting moments,
the brain may eventually turn them into a direct shortcut to arousal.
Shoes also say a great deal about the person wearing them. They can convey elegance, power, rebellion, vulnerability, authority or availability. We do not desire only the object, but also the attitude, the body and the fantasy it represents. The heel stops being a simple piece of leather and plastic and becomes the promise of a particular woman, a particular situation or a particular role within the sexual game.
As long as the fetish is enjoyed between consenting adults and causes no suffering, there is nothing to cure and very little to worry about. We have all learned to become aroused by following some rather peculiar paths. Some people need a certain look; others, a voice or a particular item of clothing; and some, apparently, need
a high-heeled shoe with exactly the right toe and enough reasons not to ask what happened to the other one.
# Watch videos
Find someone who sucks you off with as much enthusiasm as she does.
THE INTERNET, THE WORLD’S BIGGEST SCHOOLFor most of human history, learning something almost always depended on having someone nearby who knew how to do it. A parent, a teacher, a craftsman, or that one neighbor who could fix anything with a screwdriver and a couple of swear words.
If nobody around you knew how to paint, repair an engine, play guitar, or make sushi, chances are you weren’t going to learn either. You could look for a book, sign up for a class, or spend years figuring out by yourself what someone else could have explained to you in twenty minutes.
Video tutorials completely changed that.
Now we have a teacher available for practically anything we can think of. You can learn how to replace a roller-shutter strap, solder a pipe, grow tomatoes, build a computer, make a table, edit a video, or draw human anatomy properly. All you have to do is type in a few words and, more often than not, someone has already taken the time to record the entire process step by step.
It may feel completely normal because we’ve been living with it for years, but
having instant access to the practical knowledge accumulated by millions of people is one of the internet’s greatest achievements. Never before have we been able to learn so many things, from so many people, with so little effort.
Forty years ago, getting better at drawing required an art school, specialized books, and countless hours of trial and error. Today, you can watch every stroke, pause the explanation, rewind, repeat the movement, and practice at your own pace while someone shows you exactly where to place every line, shadow, and curve.
# Watch the videos
Mastering the Force.