Being a shoe lover in a feet fetish world

I recently started watching Sex and the City again, and a couple of days ago I got to the episode where Charlotte gets a pair of 500$ shoes by agreeing to get her feet massaged by the salesman (S2E12). I really felt for the poor girl. On the one hand there's this really cute pair of shoes that you can't afford, and on the other hand, there's this seemingly innocent thing, that we all know isn't innocent in the salesman's mind. Having once been offered my dream pair of Louboutins for a skype session with my feet, believe me, I know the feelings running through her head.

Being a shoe loving girl in a (social media) world filled with feet fetish guys can be tough. When I started my Instagram account dedicated to shoes, I thought I would get a couple of hundred followers, all of them being other girls who also loved shoes. I've never given my feet much thought to be honest. I hate feet myself, and I had only once been in a position where someone drew attention to mine. I was standing in line at a cafeteria at the University where I study, when an older man came up to me and told me I had amazing feet. I got all flustered and told him my sandals were new, because really, what do you say to that? He specified it was the feet not the sandals, and after that, I haven't really worn those sandals much (even though they are a very cute and happy yellow).

Now I've had my Instagram account for more than a year, and the 200 girls I thought would stick around, have turned into a lot more. Sadly though, from the very beginning most of my followers seemed to be men who are into feet, and like that day at the cafeteria, I was quite horrified of all the attention my feet suddenly got. It made me feel uncomfortable, and at some point I even stopped posting for a while. A thing that was perfectly normal and innocent to me, was made into something sexual by all the anonymous accounts that filled my inbox with weird messages. They seemed to believe that because I liked shoes, I had to be into feet as well, and that made it perfectly okay to harass me online. My inbox was quite bad in the beginning. It had it all really. Requests for bare feet photos, requests for specific ways I should move my feet in my videos, men wanting to buy me shoes, men wanting to be my slaves?!, and of course the never ending d*** pics. Being an Army girl I like to think I don't get upset easily, but when it comes to feet it just really freaks me out.

One day I found these especially lovely red Rosazissimo Louboutin feathered sandals at a second hand shop, and I was more than in love. I bought them even though they were a bit too big (and too expensive) for me, and when I got home, I made a story about my new babies. Even though the photo was of just my shoes, someone thought it necessary to answer my story with a d*** pic pasted into my photo, and on this particular day it just made me cry. A friend of mine had just told me I seemed to be running an orphanage for old shoes (which I kind of liked the thought of), and suddenly I felt like posting them on Instagram was like trafficking my kids. I've never forgotten that photo-answer to my story, and I still feel sorry for my sandals.

I realized I had to do something if I wanted to continue sharing my love of shoes with the world. I either had to fight it, get used to it, or make my profile private. I chose to fight it, and I starting out by blocking everyone I thought would possible end up being rude to me later on. On a particular night I blocked about 1.000 profiles because they all looked like the wrong kind (weird name, no profile picture). It was a lot of work and though it felt very satisfying during the process, afterwards it felt kind of wrong. I was assuming that these "fake accounts" were made to harass girls like me, but I've later on learned that some of them are very polite young men, who just don't like people to know about their liking of feet or shoes. Yes I think they could at least put up a profile picture, but as long as they don't bother me, I really don't care. Though this post might seem judgy, the thing is, I don't mind people liking feet at all. There's absolutely no harm in that, and I don't mind them following me either. Through my Instagram account I've had a lot of interesting and enlightening conversations with people with a fetish for feet, and I've come to know some of them as Insta-friends too. It's not the fetish that freaks me out, it's when some of them actively chooses to include me in, when I absolutely do not ask for that.

After my blocking rampage (I am a descendant after the Vikings after all) I chose another tactic in the fight for my right to post about shoes. I started fighting it with words and humor instead, and I've learned that this does not only help a lot on the stuff that ends up in my inbox, it also makes the whole process a lot more fun. These days I rarely get a bad comment or DM, but when I do, I turn it into a joke, and often post about it. Sometimes another person will even think it funny as well, and then I feel like a true comedian on top. On a really bad day an offensive DM can still get me down, but then I post about that too. Instantly my awesome Instagram community is there, and it doesn't take long for me to get in a better mood again. I know that a lot of the persons cheering me up are actually following me more for the feet than the shoes, but I'm okay with that. It's basically like someone hating or even being afraid of spiders, and someone else keeping them as pets. Obviously the two can still be good friends, but I'm not sure they're gonna be visiting spider conventions together.