Shoes.

I was feeling really happy earlier this morning. My life is better than I ever thought it would be. I've got a fun job, I live in a great place, I've got good friends and I've got sexual options. I'm more able to be myself and to have fun than I ever thought would be. It's a good time and my future looks bright.

Then I picked up a copy of "Redbook" that someone from another shift had left at my desk at work. It had an article on "things that are better than sex." They were all pretty bullshit--not that sex is the best things ever, but these were all really petty things--but the one that got me was about shoes.

[paraphrase] "Finding a great new pair of shoes is way better than sex. Every time I put them on I get that 'yes, yes, yes!' feeling."

And that just brought down my whole mood.

Fucking shoes, man. I have, like, five pairs? Sneakers, sandals, dressy boots, hiking boots, steel-toes. I'm good with that. I mean, nothing against people who like shoes for fashion, that's fine, but I find that the basic set fits my personal needs. I don't get sexual ecstasy from any of them. Okay, a little bit from the steel-toes. But even then, it's not literally a "yes, yes, yes!". And sex is literally that.

(Or it's a "no, no, ooh please no Daddy," but as so often in these feminism posts, I have enough trouble explaining regular sex to some people. Bringing "well it's not incest it's Daddy-girl and that's different" and "well it's not rape it's just reluctance role-play" is wayyyy too many cans of worms for someone who'd rather buy shoes. These things coexist for me, though. I tend to speak from a pseudo-vanilla perspective just for the sake of making points on the mainstream, but it's not like my kink turns off. I'm not reading about shoes as someone who'd rather fuck, I'm reading about them as someone who'd rather get held down and fucked by Daddy. Which makes everything just that much weirder.)

The funny thing is, I'm not sure sex is the best thing in the world. I mean, it's up there, but compared to, I dunno, the completion of a long difficult project or the saving of a life or the creation of a perfectly expressive work of art? Oh, but women don't do stuff like that, that's for grown-ups. Women buy shoes.

Fucking shoes, man. It's kind of a slur to talk about women and shoes, isn't it? It's a hurtful stereotype. Oh, not that we wear shoes, but that shoes are this thing for us. The Dreaded PC Police have told me that comparing oppressions is naughty so I won't go into any analogies, but repeatedly hearing "you people all like this particular trivial thing," even when the thing itself is harmless, is offensive.

You know what I really like? Being barefoot. It's not safe in a lot of settings, but when it is, it feels so good. It opens up an entire new dimension to be constantly perceiving the touch of the world. The difference between dirt and pavement, wood and tile, between sunlit and shadowed ground, so trivial in shod life, becomes suddenly significant. Being barefoot opens up an entirely new surface of my body, and it's wonderful.

Still not better than sex though.