Shyheels

He’s a boor and a narcissist, he’s not a misogynist. He quite fancies women, and thinks they ought to fancy him.

Misogyny - or misogynist - are much misused words these days. It means a dislike or loathing of women, or someone who dislikes or despises women. Nowadays it has been reduced to a catch-all term to describe anybody who is sexist or chauvinist.

Maybe it was a pirated bottle of perfume with a misspelled label that should have read Trump.

It has edgy undertones, sure, but if you listen to the lyrics in the song she's more 'sporty' and individualistic than sleazy, less inclined to follow the etiquette of high society and so she is regarded (by these stuck-up snobs) as 'a Tramp'. It was originally from a musical in the 1930s, Babes in Arms.

I always much prefer natural light. If you’ve got a reflector you ought to be fine. Won’t be much you can’t do.

Not anywhere, I shouldn't think. And anyway, The Lady is A Floozy has one too many beats...

I suspect the name of the perfume derives in some way from the 1950s jazz number The Lady is A Tramp, as sung by Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Shirley Bassey and others. I never heard The Lady is A Bum or The Lady is a A Floozy - I doubt such a title would ever have gained much traction.

Doing his best Jesus lookalike...

Perfume that knocks you over isn't terribly good perfume!

I certainly hope Tech maintains the general ban on CD topics on these forums as they really have no place in what is meant to be a family friendly fashion website, and do not really cover the interests of most of the members anyway

Your highly prescriptive 'rules' of what constitutes cross-dressing sounds a bit like the minutiae so beloved of Talmudic scholars, who can argue for hours, nay, days, over obscure points of religious law and practice. I picture a grey-bearded someone with a tape measure checking the height of a chap's cowboy boot, finding it to be three-and-three-eighths and a day-long debate erupting beneath the olive tree as to whether the man, who is otherwise wearing wrangler jeans a flannel shirt, a Stetson and a silver rodeo belt buckle, is cross-dressing. And the noisiest of the bearded scholars - the one with the tape measure - jabbing his finger in their air, to inject a note of authority, loudly maintaining than anything above three inches is feminine, declaring that said bull-rider is crossdressing! One just wants to shrug and walk away... I mentioned history because you quoted history as being somehow relevant to women's wearing of neckties. Yet you are certainly alone in seeing them as not specifically masculine. Virtually every time debate is raised in the press about women being required to wear heels in the workplace, the requirement for men to wear neckties is raised and debated as well. With equal vehemence, I might add. Ties and heels are very much seen as 'equals' in this debate, the yin and the yang, as it were, both iconic to their specific sexes. It is this picking and choosing, this inconsistency, with your position that irritates me. Aside from which any argument that relies on sweeping generalisations, no exclusions, and is so easily taken apart - reductio ad absurdum - is never a particularly strong one. But enough. I do not care to persist with this - you're going to believe what you want to believe, and I've no real interest in pursuing it further. I've said my piece. And so I shall leave you sitting in the shade of your olive tree...

You’re brave!

Puffer - regarding your third point. Heels were once masculine - exclusively masculine, in fact - and have never become wholly female. Nearly all male shoes today have a heel of some sort even if it is only three-quarters of an inch, or five-eighths, while cowboy boots have heels that can be fairly high. So have equestrian boots and motorcycle boots. And Chelsea boots, and desert boots, and chukkas. So if ties are not cross dressing, neither are heels. Consistency. You can’t pick and choose and have it both ways.

The truth is I think you do a really good job. The reason I don’t say anything is because I think you are faced with an almost impossible task juggling (fairly) so many different people’s approaches and styles while being tolerant and running a tight ship at the same time. In fact, I think it would be hard to improve on the job you do and so my feeling uncomfortable with some of the tones that are set in certain threads seems like presenting you with an unnecessary quibble. I have used the report post button on several occasions in the past - and recently too - but unless it is really bad - and some posts were - I don’t want to bother you. As I say, I think you do a splendid job, and while I might on occasion feel uncomfortable with tones and directions of certain threads, it is not enough to make me want to leave. I am still there and have nearly 7000 posts. I do wish some of the people were more fashion oriented than they seem to be, and less obsessed, fewer skirts etc, but that’s just the great difference in people I guess. I just skip those threads. I remember well the moderators you mention and they were everything you say. I was very glad when they left. But again I am happy with the way you run it!

Then millions of school girls head off to school cross dressing each day, is that right? Wearing their men’s ties. You can’t have it both ways. Your wife’s response, that CDs do more than wear shoes, is exactly the response most would give.

Transvestism is totally different to cross-dressing in every book but yours, I'm afraid. And cross-dressing is far more flamboyant and more involved than a man putting on a different pair of shoes or a woman wearing a man's hat or tie. Simple as.

I had decided that with summer coming I needed a lighter pair of stiletto boots to wear in the office - knee boots in summer seems a bit over the top - and have managed to find a pair - in dark plum suede, with 120mm heels. Acquired them yesterday. Love ‘em! They will be the go-to pair in the warmer months for sure. I think now I am sorted for heels. I don’t need much - they are only for wearing around the office - but I really like what I have. Interestingly, although the ankle boots have 120mm heels, I don’t find them harder to walk in than the 100mm knee boots. Easier if anything, although I can feel that they are higher. I really like these a lot, and they go very nicely with my skinny jeans.

Off to London today. I’ll have a few hours of wandering around on my own and so I shall bring my camera bag and do a little shooting, get my eye in ahead of some important assignments I have coming up.

I think the rules of HHP make the important distinction that the wearing of heels by men is not in any way cross-dressing but a liberated fashion choice - indeed one that reclaims what was once a masculine style anyway. For the overwhelming majority of people cross-dressing entails something far more flamboyant than an exchange of footwear - for men, it would include pantyhose, skirts, painted nails, blouse, make up etc. And for women it would be something much more in line with that photo of Tilda Swinton posted elsewhere, in the male dinner suit. Had she been wearing skinny jeans, a jumper and a pair of men's Caterpillar workbooks the notion of crossdressing would never even have occurred. Neither would it occur to most people that a schoolgirl wearing a necktie would be cross-dressing, yet she would be wearing an iconic masculine article of clothing, tied in the iconic masculine way. A man in heels is unusual, yes, and right be looked at oddly, but if heels are the only things he is wearing from the other side of the shop - especially if they are block heels - the term 'crossdressing' would not flash up in many minds; cross-dressing is something flamboyant in the minds of most, something that takes more effort, is more overt. People expect more from their crossdressers than a mere change of footwear. Mention the term and they are far more likely to think of The Rocky Horror Picture show than a chap in jeans and flannel shirt who happens to be wearing a pair of ankle boots with two-inch block heels that he bought at Topshop.

Fiji is lovely. I have travelled quite a bit through the various islands there. My favourite is Ovelau, Taveuni is up there too. And the Yasawas.

You should move to Fiji. Skirts - called sulus there - are the norm for men and women. And for precisely the reason you say - comfort and ease of movement.

I have never had even the least bit of curiosity about wearing women’s clothes, nor the least bit of interest in doing so. I liked knee boots for ages and wished the style was open to men, but I never really saw them as women’s boots - rather a style predominately worn by women. A difference. Heels were not really part of the deal for me and, in fact, my otk boots are all low/flat heeled ones. The interest in heeled boots came as more of a sense of daring to push the boat out, and a bit of an adventure. Much as I enjoy wearing them - and I do enjoy my wearing my stiletto-heeled boots - there is a sense of ‘holiday’ about them, more a bit of theatre and escape, whereas my regular otk boots are just simply my boots.

As for me I am about as likely to wear a skirt as I would be to wear a burka....

There have been things that strayed well over the line but Tech was quick to pounce and the images and the people who posted them are gone. He really is quite good about that. As for me, yes I am a man of the world and have seen many strange and astounding things in my time, and don't get bothered by much. In general I move on. But I like being involved with HHP and the generally interesting and offbeat people one finds there, and the notion of a site where one can chat about boots, shoes and fashion - as well as other topics, further afield. I just wish there was not this cross-dressing aspect to it, which has zero appeal to me and makes me not want to be involved with it. I'm not shocked by it, just put off to the extent that I feel uncomfortable with those aspects of the site, and wish that part were different.

I would certainly agree that there is more real fashion discussion going on here than on HHP. Far more. In fact there is very little in the way of general fashion discussion there. There is a section in the bottom part for general fashion threads, but it is seldom visited or posted upon and even there it is nearly all about men wearing women’s clothing - skirts, stockings etc. Don’t get me wrong, I like HHP but aspects of it make me feel quite uncomfortable too.