Down With Heels

For I was a slave to the desire that rules our libidinal culture. And an elongated foot and leg just announces, Hey, y’all, there’s pussy at the other end of this. Yet every pair of excruciating heels also telegraphs a subtle masochism: i.e., I am a woman who can not only take an ass-whipping; to draw your gaze, I’ll inflict one on myself.

This week’s New Yorker has a delightful series on inventions that should be uninvented — Alexandra Kleeman on mirrors, Lee Child on fiction, Charlie Brooker on dancing (WRONG). The above is an excerpt from Mary Karr’s very smart take on high heels, which I also happen to despise.

Perhaps my years as a mediocre ballerina and my genetic predisposition for bunions are significant factors at work here. But I do so enjoy the immense relief of pressure that comes with taking off even a two-inch heel, and I prefer not to have put them on in the first place. I will compromise, a few times a year, for a wedding or a special occasion, and every single time, I regret it. I don’t even own a pair of “real” high heels — I just have those Swedish clog sandals that have an extremely stable and unattractively wide three-inch block for my heel to rest on. I am genuinely worried that if I wear an actual stiletto, my ankles will snap and buckle, and like Steph Curry, I’ll have to undergo some kind of radical surgery, possibly inheriting the tendons of a dead woman who could handle her Manolos.

But you know what? I refuse. I know all the teetering little celebrities look great in six-inch heels, and I have plenty of short friends who love them and wouldn’t be caught dead in a calf-flattening plimsoll. But you and I have both watched enough compilation videos of models falling down to know that high heels are just tiny stilts that only really Lady Gaga and a handful of women have ever mastered. My hat’s off to you all! I’ll be over here in my Converse.

I recently wore a pair of Loeffler Randall ankle boots and a gentleman literally asked me “What are those?” He did not understand why there was almost no heel — I will admit they do look like a pair of Chelsea boots with the lift sawed off. They weren’t what he was used to seeing. I was reminded of the old Mentos commercial:

And that reminds me of the beautiful Irving Penn photograph of Manolo Blahnik the accompanied Michael Specter’s 2000 New Yorker profile of the shoe designer — he’s holding up a disembodied heel against his third eye with an expression of pure bliss. They’re nice to look at, high heels, but not so nice to wear! Mary Karr is right.

Photo: Natalia Rojas