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Welcome back to the monthly discussion presented by the National Femme Famosas. We are continuing our countdown for the return of the most organized celebirty foot fantasy league at Wu's. The contest returns on February 10 and will run unitl July 4, when the our champion is crowned.
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But before we get there, let talk about a topic that I don't think has ever been mentioned. If it has been discussed, then the topic comes up very few and far between.
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I've sometimes wondered what it would have been like to have lived in China somewhere between the eleventh and the ninteenth centuries. This was a time when a whole population, a whole society, appears to have fallen victim to one very specific fetish: that of the bound foot. It wasn't a simple case of a few men and women getting together here and there playing footsie. It was rather that for hundreds of years, millions of people decided that the female foot was to be the all and end all of human sexuality. But not any foot: only feet that were molded and remodelled into a nightmarishly specific and rigid ideal -- the lotus foot.
That was the name they gave to the anatomical curiosity that was created by foot binding. The big toe was left free, then the other toes and the body of the foot were strapped tight back, curving the foot and reducing its length, and also creating a sort of cleft on the underside between the end of the heel and the start of the sole. The flesh in this cleft became incredibly soft and sensitive. It was a brand new erogenous zone for the women and one into which Chinese men loved to insert his penis.
There's some evidence that foot binding started with the Emperess Taki. She was born in the eleventh century with tiny deformed feet, and as a mark of honor other women started binding their feet in imitation of her deformity. Now medieval China was no doubt a wacky place, but this simply doesn't sound like a credible example of human behavior. In fact it sounds like deranged lunacy to me, but there was no doubt it happened. Millions of women had their feet bound, and a great many of those who didn't probably wanted to.
I understand that there was a considerable class element involved with foot binding. If you were a very rich woman you'd have your feet completely bound and therefore be completely crippled. If you were very poor you'd need to stand up in the field working all day in which case you couldn't afford to be bound. But in between there were lots of women who were only moderately bound.
Of course, like many other people I find foot binding a complete horror. Not least of the problems for a man like myself is that the lotus foot dosen't look very appealing in a shoe. The foot itself is so distorted that it can never fit into an ordinary shoe at all. Such shoes as ever exsited for the women with bound feet were just slippers, shapeless in themselves.
But the main problem for me with the lotus foot is how it looks. I realize that beauty is always in the eye of the beholder, is indeed cultrally specific, but the lotus foot seems to be objectively ugly. It looks like the foot of some strange, mutated animal, or some half-developed fetus. I don't see why anyone would create, much less worship and have sex with, a thing that looks like that.
What exactly was going on here? Now, you might say that the people in China were attempting to redesign and customize the human body. And you might say that's what all clothes, shoes, and fashion attempts to do. I'd know what you meant, and I would agree with you, but my gut feeling is that something very different is at stake. What I think was really going on in China for all those centuries was that these people had fallen in love with deformity for its own sake. They'd found a way to revel in ugliness.
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It's a grea thing that famous chinese women today do not have to resort to foot binding.
Bad news for those who like her: She will NOT be featured in the second season of National Femme Famosas. When our celebrity game returns for the new season, you'll have to look for someone to appreciate other than Lucy.
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I think that China is a country of contrasts. On the one hand, they produced delicately beautiful poetry and prose. And their food was unusual and amazing. But on the other, they were a matriacle (spelled that wrong) society that had royalty and practiced slavery. And their women were considered second class citizens, far below the status of men. With this in mind, it kinda makes sense that they practiced foot binding. I'm very happy that this practice has fallen out of favor!
-------------------- "You have very nice feet!" Posts: 3711 | Registered: Apr 2005
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It's good Lucy Liu was not born at the time when the practice of foot binding was the norm. On a bit of a sad side, she will not participate in your contest next year. Does that make her an NFF Reject?
But I do agree that foot binding made the feet look terrible. What made these men think that feet that looked like the THAT were worth worshiping. The line when National said that they had fallen in love with deformity for its own sake really summed it up.
Imagine how OUR lives would've been like with practically every girl we see had their feet bounded? Do you think we would have a foot fetish.
I really think if foot binding was widespread, our fetish would not exist and it would make women look atrocious.
Think about that for a second. Am I right?
Posts: 60 | Registered: Apr 2008
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foot binding is disgusting. I don't even wanna see it on this board or any mention of it. They look like hooves when its done.
Posts: 111 | Registered: Feb 2005
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I look at it this way; deformation of the human body for aesthetics is not uncommon in modern western culture either. Two examples that come to mind are body piercings and circumcision, granted some other cultures practice both and at more extreme levels.
Posts: 95 | Registered: Jun 2008
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True. Did any of your hear about a special surgery some girls are having done on their feet? It removes a bone in them mearly so that they can wear high heeled shoes more comfortably! If any of you ladies are reading this, please please don't consider doing this!
-------------------- "You have very nice feet!" Posts: 3711 | Registered: Apr 2005
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-------------------- New Ship but she's got the right name. You treat her like a lady and she'll always bring you home. Posts: 4051 | Registered: Apr 2005
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It is always flawed logic to judge the past with standards of the present day and infer that people were unethical, ugly, etc. No doubt present customs will be deemed that way even far into the future. Dorothy Ko is the leading scholar of footbinding in it's best contextualized sense. Beyond the sexual angle which is the frequent focus of conemporary discussion on the topic she offers the thesis that it is a distinction along cultural lines for the Han people. These are the ethnic majority of Chinese who struggled to maintain their cultural identity once the foreign Manchus of the Qing installed themselves as the last ruling dynasty of China in 1644. The manchu also imposed the foreign queue (long braid in back, shaved top of head) on the men under penalty of death!). It was form of cultural resistance to the manchurian conquerers. In spite of folklore such as the tiny-footed maiden, and the fox-footed empress of the Zhou dynasty (over 3000 years ago), and Song period (10th century) emperor Li Yu's favorite concubine 'Lovely Maiden', there is little evidence tht footbinding was very widespread before the Ming dynasty around 1400 AD. The view that a bound foot is 'ugly' is a modern, culturally-biased view. Authentic Chinese food (not the modified versions served in American restaraunts) would be considered disgusting by many non-Chinese palates but does that make them disgusting? No. The fact of the matter is that yes women were revered for the smallness of their feet - Cinderella is a fairy tale that originated in China, by the way. Many Chinese preferred small feet because that was the cultural norm but some/few/many actually loved to play with those feet. Just because the feet were wrinkled and curled doesn't make them ugly to all but the present day view. I also would venture to say that the few photos of bound feet are from whne the custom was widespread, and in it's final years. There are a couple of photos where the feet actually look alluring and not all old and distorted as they look in some of those commonly circulted pix. And there are no pictures of any 20-year-old's feet. Something to ponder and something that I have scrapped with others in this community over in the past. Much of what appeals about those feet to Han Chinese of the past is the same thing that attratcts present day fetishists: the softness, the wrinkles, the smallness, and the indescribable scent.
Posts: 91 | Registered: May 2004
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