Food for thought: High Heels

[Citizen X]

I have a thing for a lady in high heels, but historically, there was only one reason why heels were attached to the shoes of a lady.
The reason is simple: back in the day, women rode horses as well, to do so effectively, they required heels to negotiate the stirrup of a horse i.e it holds the foot of a rider..

[pmbguy]

It’s downright dangerous if you ask me...walking around with compromised balance, stumbling in and out of traffic, hard falls and amazing saves, probably as dangerous as being tipsydrunk. A perilous tactic to attract the opposite sex, but it looks good so on balance I guess it’s worth the risk and discomfort.

[adrianh]

[FONT="]I have a thing for a lady in high heels, but historically, there was only one reason why heels were attached to the shoes of a lady.[/FONT]
The reason is simple: back in the day, women rode horses as well, to do so effectively, they required heels to negotiate the stirrup of a horse i.e it holds the foot of a rider..

I find this very hard to believe. Men have the exact same problem with stirrups. The addition of heels to riding boots was purely to keep the boot in the stirrup and had no relation to the sex of the rider. I bet that men wore stirrup heels long before women did.

You must also consider the definition of high heels. A stirrup heel doesn't need to be higher than about 15mm which is not considered to be a high heel. High heels are anything over about 40mm which is too high for horse riding.

[pmbguy]

As far as I know the heel was used first by the Persians for horse riding, allowing the rider to stand up in the stirrups to shoot with the bow and arrow.

[adrianh]

I think they were invented to make Sylvester Stallone as tall as a short girl!

[desA]

Tall heels give a lasses legs a nice look...

[pmbguy]

Tall heels give a lasses legs a nice look...

A blond with red high heels really stands out in a crowd!

[AndyD]

I reckon a red head with blonde heels would also stand out

[KimH]

And here I always thought high heels were invented by men for the very reason pmbguy mentioned:

but it looks good so on balance I guess it’s worth the risk and discomfort.

Personally I prefer not to wear anything higher than about 2.5 inches and even then find it uncomfortable after a while... the curse of being a machy's daughter who prefers overalls I guess.

Case in point as to the danger of high heels - I am seeing the doc at 12pm today for a screwed knee (which I suspect was caused by misadventure in 5inch heels recently)

[adrianh]

Depends on the girl, the circumstance and the shoe.

For the blonde who knows about books!

[adrianh]

This girl rocks when it comes to footwear!

[Citizen X]

I find this very hard to believe. Men have the exact same problem with stirrups. The addition of heels to riding boots was purely to keep the boot in the stirrup and had no relation to the sex of the rider. I bet that men wore stirrup heels long before women did.

You must also consider the definition of high heels. A stirrup heel doesn't need to be higher than about 15mm which is not considered to be a high heel. High heels are anything over about 40mm which is too high for horse riding.

"Elizabeth Semmelhack, curator for the Bata Shoe Museum, traces the high heel to male horse-riding warriors in the Middle East who used high heels for functionality, because they help hold the rider's foot in stirrups. She states that the earliest high heel she has seen is depicted on a 9th-century CE ceramic bowl from Persia"[1]


Also bear in mind that in historically, we had a very sexist world i.e. 'it's a man's world,' this has changed for the better. The implication is that a man would by necessity have a proper cowboy boot, the heel of a cowboy boot was and is very manly.
Somewhere along the historical line women started to ride horses, so something had to be done with their footwear to accommodate the stirup

On the lighter side, a well dressed lady in high heels definitely has some effect on men..

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[1] Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-heeled_footwear. Accessed 1 April 2014

[KristiKat]

dangerous fall if the heel gets stuck in the stirrup ... getting dragged behind a horse on full speed...don't think so

[adrianh]

I took a looooot of photographs at a horse riding competition that my youngest daughter took part in on Sunday.

Check these photographs out: A young lady by the name of Annette riding a horse called Blood Diamond. That horse is like a Lamborghini with its traction control turned off. Annette handles the horse like she's Mario Andretti!

[Marq]

I believe theres a correlation between the height of the women's heels and her general reliance on men or her man.
The higher the heel, the more the reliance.
Generally I have found this to be true, but other than my own observations have no other empirical evidence.
The reverse could also be true in that the man is more reliant on the women specifically for sexual reasons (observations again).
There is definitely a correlation in men's blood pressure vs height of heel and shoe colour may also affect this. Blood pressure colour is still just red.
Which of course confirms my theory that red high heel shoes are rated the best.