I'm very active on Twitter. Every evening, I check the web for the latest news and blog updates regarding boots (and gloves) and post the links. Since thigh high boots are the THING for the F/W 2009 season, there's a massive deluge of daily info. Mainstream media and their inane 'Trend Reports', and the countless fashion blogs - all weighing in on their opinions of the 'Thigh Boot Trend'.
It's been a Bootlovers BONANZA! I can barely keep up! In my entire adult life - and I'll be 40 in a few weeks - I have never witnessed such an all encompassing devotion to exotic boots by the fashion world. EVERY magazine is promoting boots in their Fall issues - and it's HOT boots too!
Thankfully, it's not like last year, with the no-heel designs and the hideous 'open-toe' bullshit that 99.9% of us righteously hated. The only criticism I can direct at the 'trend' is the prices. Did you think The Little Shoe Box was expensive? You may want to lean towards the fainting couch. Average prices for the seriously 'must have' boots range from $1400 - $4000 USD. Fashion confirms what us custom-whores already knew - boots are an EXPENSIVE fetish.
(Louis Vuitton Thigh Highs or Mortgage Payment. Your Choice.)
I suspect the 'glove guys' are laughing their asses off - they've always known the score.
But it's not the prices that are getting me down. It's the 'thigh boots = whore' thinly-veiled slant that so many of these fashion writers have.
For once - it's not the boys I want to throttle, it's other WOMEN who are doing this. They are using a silly rom-com called 'Pretty Woman' as a comparison, and a put-down.
(Stare at THIS CHICK, not Julia Roberts.)
Bootlovers.com knows far more about the boots featured in Pretty Woman than most. We featured Julia Roberts' Pretty Woman body-double - Shelley Michelle - just a few issues ago. Julia was far too thin to wear those infamous patent boots on the poster - it's Shelley's body you have been looking at for the past 20 years! It's kind of funny/sad that an actress was considered too thin to be 'sexy' twenty years ago.
Pretty Woman was released in 1990. How many other films released in 1990 can you name off-hand? I'm a SciFi film geek and even I can't think of any w/o checking IMDB. Those boots made a hell of an impression on our cultural psyche. Unfortunately, it only enforced the "thigh boots = hooker" mentality that so many outsiders have. While countless male boot fetishists swoon over that film/poster - it only made acceptance for female boot lovers much harder than it already is.
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(I'd be embarrassed to associate with these $19.99 Buy It Now Ebay specials too.)
That so many 'fashion editors' are mentioning Pretty Woman in their 'trend' write-ups only shows their age. The majority of women who are devouring the latest fashion trends were in grade school in 1990 - they wouldn't give a fuck about an old Julia Roberts film if it wasn't for its continual mention by fashion 'experts'.
It ANGERS me that while a whole new generation of young women are being introduced to exotic boots - the 'whore' stereotype is still being dumped on their heads. It's intimidating - and it's scaring them away from wearing the high-end fashion boots that are filling the fashion shops right now.
(Tell her she looks like a whore - I dare you.)
I have a request. It's not a solution of the problem - but I believe every bit helps.
Your mission - should you accept it. When I post all of these "Fashion Trend' links on Twitter, and if you pick up the 'thigh boots = whore' vibe in any of the editorials, please respond in their Comments. Do NOT let the innuendo slide. If a woman has the nerve to post about how much she loves the new trend but is afraid to wear the boots - encourage her (not: U LUK FKING HOT in BOOTS!!! - Be A Gentleman!). If she posts pics on her blog - give her a compliment. The most important thing: give them props for wearing gorgeous boots. For every comment you make, there's hundreds reading it.
The thigh boots trend won't last - trends never do. Next year we may be back to clunky-heeled boring inanity and we'll have to wait another decade before wild boots are 'hot' again. Let's be the Boot Ambassadors! The women who are just beginning to love boots may be the boot designers ten years from now!
Arrogant.
You are a 'Master' - I am a former Mistress. We should both understand the concept of taking things to far.
"Models are expected to be beautiful. That's the job."
Of course it is. But Faith Hill is not a model. She's a 39 year-old mother of three country singer. Redbook knew this when they brought her in for a cover.
Redbook is not Vogue or Elle. It's a 'lifestyle' magazine with a female, 34 - 59 demographic. It is not for the 'Maxim' crowd. That's what made so many people so angry.
"If a truck driver is kind, a good person, truly loves trucks, and can't shift gears? Too bad, he's not a good truck driver. If a model is kind, a good person, and truly loves boots, and is 20 pounds overweight? Eh."
Not sure what you are getting at with this statement. Are you referring to me to being the 'kind, good person, who loves boots and is 20 pounds overweight? I don't think I'm kind.
"As a friend used to say, "That's the way it is because it is that way." You can try to change the culture, if you don't have the serenity to accept yada yada ya."
We change culture all of the TIME.
Twenty years ago, a black artist couldn't get his or her video played on daytime MTV. Ten years ago, gay men and lesbians were unheard of on television.
Yada Yada Ya...If we followed your friend's logic, caucasians would still have their own schools and drinking fountains.
FUCK serenity. Culture is something that NEEDS to evolve and change every day.
"When I look at a boot model, I can't tell if she's a fetishist, and frankly, I don't care. I'm not marrying her, or engaging in a meaningful relationship with her. I'm looking at her picture, or watching her walk down the runway."
But some do care. Some care very much. The point of Bootlovers.com is to introduce the select women who do take boots very seriously, and hopefully provide her with an audience that appreciates her fetish.
I love to see a pretty women in wonderful boots (or gloves) too - I wouldn't run the blog if I didn't - but I have a mental list of who loves boots, and who wears them because a stylist told them to. It may not matter to you - but as a boot freak, it matters to ME. The women who wear boots to run errands, or who include gloves as a part of a ensemble - you had better BELIEVE I know who they are. You don't care - I DO.
There is a kazillion paysites out there who happily cater to you - why are you on my blog?
"I attended DFP way back when, and when Constance FINALLY hired models, the fashion show looked good. (I remember Gypsy tripping and nearly falling off the runway - good person, but...)"
Can't argue with you there (I remember Gypsy), but nowadays a woman does not have to be a paid model to be a boot fan, or to look good.
"The moment money changes hands, and the transaction becomes commercial, boom. Production values, expectations, no more forgiveness. Now it's biz, baby! Nothing personal."
You need to reread my post again - Bootlovers.com does not pay models.
And you can be flippant with your comment - but as an ex-prodom, and as someone who works with fetish models - the 'biz' has it's limits, 'baby'!
We all turn away paychecks. Money doesn't buy everything. 'Nothing personal'? There's a person in that photo. Rub yourself senseless to her image, but knock off the depersonalization bullshit. If you need that to get off - that's your issue - don't project it on the rest of us.
"You have chosen to say no to hard core. That's fine. But don't be down on those who do it. It's precisely what you do, plus a little bit more, genital contact."
Where - EVER - have you seen me 'be down' on hardcore?
I slam hardcore websites that use the word 'fetish' when they are anything but. Because it's not fair to 'real' fetish websites.
There are a few 'hardcore' websites out there that I despise - but it is because I know that their idea of 'consent' is fuzzy, at best.
It is not that I 'hate' their content - it is about consent.
You label yourself as a 'Master' for Christ's sake! Then you - moreso than the average man - should be hyper aware of issues regarding consent, and abuse, and dealing with fucked-up women. It comes with the territory.
"Come on... every time I see a girl wearing a rubber hood, crotch-high six-inch heel leather boots, hanging upside-down from the ceiling in a rubber straitjacket - or whatever - , I ask myself : "Would she do that at home for her boyfriend?" My guess is, no she wouldn't."
You need to get out more. My personal phonebook is FULL of women who are decidedly kinky, attractive, and have been burned so much that they've pretty much given up looking for a partner.
I do not envy male dominants - because there are so many abusive assholes out there who use that label and RUIN it for the sincere men.
I mean - seriously - almost every woman I know has subgirl fantasies, but are afraid to even ADMIT it.
"Models get paid, porn stars get paid, and true fetishists who don't need to get paid are one in a million. By the way, if you know a single one, please send her my way, would you? I'll marry her and keep her in all the leather and boots she can wear. And snuggles? Don't even get me started."
FWIW - I've heard that Montreal is a HORRID place to find a fetish partner. This is not an insult towards your city - I went to university in Montreal and know the city quite well.
But every kink/fetish partner I have had - and there has been quite a few - I never met them at a fetish club or on a website or a 'lifestyle' group. We just met. Bookstores. Through mutual friends. SciFi cons. Live shows. At work.
"If a person can't make a living at something (which is the case of MUCH art), then it's a hobby. Or they starve, a not uncommon choice, but to my mind, not a good one."
I don't 'make a living' at Bootlovers.com - and this blog is paid for out of my own pocket.
But if people like me gave it up - then online 'fetish' would be left to the porn producers.
I know you say that you couldn't give a shit about who produces your jerk-off material - but unless you want to spend the next countless years staring at the same pairs of cheap vinyl thigh-highs...you should.
You don't have to own an issue of Bootlovers to recognize the influence it has had on even the lowest of 'boot porn' websites. Everyone rips us off now - I long ago gave up taking it personally.
But even after this long response...you missed my point.
...
What my point is. What it always is. What concerns me. Is that the current 'trend' of anger, contempt, and sometimes outright misogyny is scaring women away from the internet.
Many will roll their eyes. But the Washington Post, NY Times, and The Guardian have all had features in the past few months, documenting this trend.
So some can sneer, and think I am some fat old crazy bitch - but I am showing the writing on the wall.
Women are LEAVING the web in insane numbers because of the 'backlash' from the assholes who are ruining it for everyone else. I don't even hang around the web chatrooms, yet even I hear about - and witness - this via the various fan and female webgeek groups I belong to. The women are leaving! The only thing that can change this is the 'good guys' finally delurking and pulling rank; and putting these miserable fucktards in their place. We - as women - have tried, but they don't listen to us.
The 'good guys' - I know you are out there - need to start stepping up . Right now, the inmates are starting to run the asylum.
Goddammit - start being men and put these boys in their place! Your comments count - I've seen it in action. Even some free-for-all blogs where the boys are doing the online equivilent of being excited puppies, pissing all over the place - then an alpha dog (sorry for the analogy - but it fits in this situation) steps in, and puts the little ones in line.
I know the analogy is terrible...but we desperately need more 'alpha dogs' - men like you - to set the standard. Women should not be intimidated, or scared away from, or made to feel 'unworthy' of...belonging.
It's insane, isn't it? The majority of fetishism is based on women - most of you want to meet a woman who shares and enjoys and accepts your fetish - yet the current trend is scaring your potential partners away! WTF?!
Do me a favor - the next time you are on a blog, or LJ group, or in a chatroom that is doing the verbal free-for-all gangbang? Tell them to knock that shit off - and watch them fall in line behind you.
One more thing before I go to bed...
It's something that I (sadly) laugh about...
All of the current 'hot' fetish models - the ones that everyone (righteously) swoon over, and who 'set the standard'...
While most of them lie about their age - none of them are under 30. Actually, most of them are over 35. If you knew the real ages of these models, your head would explode.
What should concern you - there's no 'up and comers' ready to take their place.
They are too afraid to post their photos - the 'standard' of perfection scares the hell out of them - because a bunch of jackasses who have been lucky to get laid maybe once or twice in their lives - will call them FAT and UGLY - and it scares them away.
Just this past week - a young model - a former 'Suicide Girl'...nice slim figure, great skin, pretty smile, and the typical SG 'look' - pale, black hair, blue eyes, a regretable tattoo...about 5'8", 120 lbs., no implants. She made the mistake of submitting a few amateur pics to one of these popular 'straight guy' girlie celeb blogs with the hope of being a 'featured girl'.
The pics were not photshopped - I don't know whether this was naivity or sheer balls on her part. I suspect the former - she didn't have the resources available to her to be 'internet ready'.
They tore her to shreds. Absolutely ripped her apart. The bitchiest of drag queens would have told them to back off out of sympathy. A pretty 20 year old girl who was trying - she won't be back. If I was on the receiving end of those cruel comments - I'd still be bawling my eyes out.
THAT is the point to the few fucktards who don't GET IT.
(Image from Teri Gallery #32 - click here to view the enlargement)