Why Do Men Love Kinky Boots?

Where women’s clothing is concerned, it's obvious why certain words have often gone together: 'naughty' and 'nightie', for example, or 'sexy' and 'underwear’.

But why 'kinky' and 'boots'? What is it about these sturdy and, on the face of it, purely practical items of footwear that excite the minds of men in ways that other garments don't?

Let's begin by defining terms. The boots that men consider kinky aren’t the Wellington or gum variety, unless they’re the most unusual fellows (each to his own, I suppose, though Charlie Dimmock must have revolutionised the nature of male fantasies across the land).

Usually, men are imagining something adorned with zips, heels and pointy toes, and maybe little bits of fur or feathers arranged around the tops.

That said, boots of any kind encasing female ankles, calves or maybe stretching right up to the – gasp! – thighs can have the same effect.

Riding boots, for instance. Ostensibly they’re just the things you force your feet into before getting on a horse. Yet, worn in combination with jodhpurs and a crop, they can fill a man’s head with extraordinary ideas.

Even boots originally fashioned for nothing more titillating than plodding around a building site can become curiously distracting to chaps.

Fifteen years ago, I wrote a magazine article about Doctor Martens boots, pointing out how the combination of red leather and the famous Air Wair sole appealed to just about everybody.

My insights inspired an anonymous male correspondent to send snapshots of lovingly polished ‘DMs’ in a range of provocative poses together with neat hand-written notes extolling their arousing properties ‘especially when they’re on girls’.

If butch boots such as these can have a man champing at the bit, what might the impact of those designer items created with such an outcome in mind?

I could quote all sorts of sages and head-shrinkers at this point. I could hint at the way the military associations of big, shiny boots send out signals about mastery and submission which, when emitted from female feet, can make the most macho of men come over all unnecessary in ways they’d really rather not admit to.

But maybe the best way to sum up the phenomenon is by recalling Nancy Sinatra’s 1966 hit record ‘These Boots Are Made For Walking’.

Even as a child, hearing this droll, slightly scary song on Three Way Family Favourites, I knew it was about sort of dangerous reversal in the balance of male and female power. Who can forget it’s saucy punchline?: ‘One of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you!’

‘Ooooh,’ as Austin Powers would have put it at the time, ‘be-have!’

The kinky connotations of women wearing boots may stem from the secret sides of men’s psyches, but that doesn’t mean they can’t give consenting adults a good giggle. Four years ago, my girlfriend and I flew to Rome to get married.

Despite the exotic location, we deliberately took a low-key attitude to all the traditional adornments, including my tie (bought at the airport), our rings (bought at a gift shop opposite the Spanish Steps) and her bouquet (bought from a flower stall on the way to the chapel).

All the other pre-ceremonial arrangements were made in a similarly slapdash manner with one exception: what the bride wore on her feet.

We weren’t obsessed about it: if nothing better had turned up she would have turned up she would have got by with the old brogues she travelled in. But we went into a shoe shop and a sales assistant pounced.

She was roughly 8ft tall, of which a good six inches comprised deadly sharp stilettos. Her legs were wrapped in something a boa constrictor might have been inhabiting 5 minutes before.

When we asked for her advice, she eyed the black brogues sadly: ‘They are beautiful,’ she purred, smiling weakly through her disdain, ‘but throw them away.’

She then strode over to a shelf full of slinky elevator bootees and posed beside them like a cross flamingo. ‘Here,’ she said, beckoning my intended, ‘try on some of these.’

I’d love to know what thoughts were passing through her head. Did she suspect that my beloved might not know how best to please me? Or did she think I looked like a man who deserved to be walked over?

Whatever, we emerged half an hour later with the daunting suede creations in which a troth was plighted the next day. They weren’t comfortable, and my new wife kicked them off as soon as it was polite to do so. I can’t recall her ever wearing them again.