Sex, shoes and the workplace

Sex, shoes and the workplace

I couldn’t let this one go really.
Jenni Russell this week has written an interesting article about shoes and sex and the domination of men in the workplace.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/aug/07/high-heels-tuc

The TUC are placing a motion that high heels should not be worn in the workplace because they are not conducive to a productive working environment.
Well, I suppose, as Jenni has pointed out, that rather depends on your working environment.
Is there a union for pole dancers? If there isn’t then I may put myself forward to set one up for these lasses, who gain an extraordinary amount of admiration from me that they can walk in these things let alone perform.

Jenni goes on to say that of course, there are situations when stilettos are probably not very helpful at work but to have a blanket ban seems rather joyless. However, there are equally places of work where having heels on can really help. For example, taller people get noticed more and are more successful – apparently.

The main gist of the article is to say to the TUC – come on! Do we really have to work in drab places where sensible lace-ups are deemed the only viable footwear, where a little bit of class and sexiness is banished in some sort of 1984esque Big Brother command?

Here’s a great paragraph.
It's been one of the great mistakes of the left in Britain to confuse equality with sameness, and to think that if we can just eliminate sexual differences, or sexual awareness in the workplace, the world would be a better, happier, more egalitarian place. Well, it's nonsense. People's minds and skills should all be taken seriously, and treated equally, but not at the cost of a sexless uniformity.

I think Jenni has this absolutely spot on!
Equality does not nor ever should mean sameness. Conformity denies uniqueness, and sexual difference is unsurprisingly never going to change. Men are always going to have dicks and women vaginas! The issue about equality of the sexes is not to pretend we are androgynous but to seek a balance of opportunity irrespective of whether you have tits or not.
You can shove a woman in a boiler suit but you can still see from the form that she is the female of the species. It is how she does her job that should give her the promotion that she deserves and eradicating gender from the workplace is never, ever going to happen no matter how many stilettos you throw out of the office window!


Jenni says that “Wearing high heels is one of the great joys of being a woman, just as wearing enormous basketball shoes and oversized jeans appears to be one of the great joys of life if you're a skinny teenage boy. They both exaggerate the qualities that differentiate the sexes; elegance, delicacy and longer legs on the one hand; size, strength and potential physical dominance on the other. That has no appeal to some people, but for others it can be one of the basic pleasures of a day.”

And indeed it is! Making yourself feel sexy with the clothes that you wear and the shoes that you have on your feet can be an exhilarating experience. It can raise your spirits, especially if you have to endure the doldrums of a drab and characterless office.
I love to see people making an effort to dress well in an office, and I don’t mean that they should all be formally attired or indeed flaunting their sexuality. Far from it!
The effort I am talking about is the effort they have taken to make themselves feel good, and one of the ways that some people may make themselves feel good is by making themselves feel sexy, and this is done by dressing in a sexy way.
This sexuality isn’t an overt “come on”. It isn’t an open invitation to fondle and fawn. It is about how that person feels about themselves, and if it provides a little enjoyment to those who look on and appreciate the effort then so be it.

Obviously there is a time and a place. Tarty, over the top flaunting is not pleasant. In your face sexuality at certain times is definitely not required. Some might even go as far to say that women who use their attributes to further their professional progress rather than using their all round intelligence and ability are doing womankind no favours whatsoever.
But I am not talking about this. I am talking about a desire to feel good and ensure that you are in the best frame of mind to get on with the job.

As for me, I have been accused in the past of flaunting my bits deliberately, of dressing in a certain way to capture the attention of a colleague or two. I can genuinely state that such times have been very limited indeed. Of course, there might have been times when I have attended certain meetings, knowing that a certain attractive man might be present, and I might have take a considered approach to clothing myself on such days but never to deliberately get my tits or thighs on show to further my career.

The reason that I dress in the way that I do is purely for me. If it gives me confidence to try and make myself look somewhat decent or even sexual, that is because I want to feel good about myself. It has nothing to do with the onlooker.

And returning to Jenni, like her, I don’t think you can take sexuality out of the workplace. This is a real place with real people, often spending more time in such environments than with the people in their home. Relationships, both platonic and sexual, are formed. Again, nothing that the TUC imposes is going to make any difference and nor should it.
We are all individuals, she chants. We all thrive on the relationships that we form, be it at work, through work or within our personal lives.

And whilst we are on the subject, workplace sex is extremely horny.

I think I’d quite like to work in a office with a daily offering of pre-work or post work sex as part of the terms of employment!
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Let’s return to the heels for a moment.

Many years ago, I had both the fortune and misfortune to work in a shoe shop.
Fortune because I was surrounded by a range of delicious shoes that were crying out for me to take them home with me as part of my salary, misfortunate because I then developed an Imelda Markos style interest in what was on the end of my feet.

I love shoes, and I love sexy shoes. I also love practical, comfortable shoes that allow me to walk properly when I want to but I particularly like shoes that give me additional height that therefore accentuate the length of my legs.

And I do have a slight fantasy about sexy legs and sexy shoes and fuck me stilettos doing their level best in getting a hard on for a desired cock.
Men should be treated to well-dressed women wearing shoes that show a desire for the wearer to get a good seeing to, especially if said legs are also clad in fine stockings that are gagging to be removed.

Kinky boots are good too, especially ones with long zips that have to be carefully withdrawn so that legs can climb out and splay in anticipation.
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This is just a short piece of writing because I have to do some real work soon but I do think it would be a tragic place if being sexy was eradicated from the workplace. More over, there is an underlying problem here because there is an assumption that we can be asexual or that we should be asexual in certain circumstances.
Surely all employers want human beings working for them, and if they want humans then surely they want sexual beings for indeed that is what we are, or bloody well should be.