So you want little feet?

[missy_pooh_1997]

That gives the term "hammer time in her shoes" to a whole new level.

[granola shoes]

I remember reading about this in a book I have called "The Underground Education" ( http://www.amazon.com/Underground-Ed.../dp/0385483767 ).

The book mentions foot binding as a sexual thing: the bound foot was referred to as a "lotus foot" (I think?) and ideally it would be small enough to fit in the mouth. The toes folded under look (intentionally or not) similar to the labia folds.

I'll have to look in the book again when I get home.

[candy from strangers]

Originally Posted by Cervus

I don't know about the description, but the pictures are indeed real. I've seen at least one documentary on the History Channel about the process, and many of the women who have suffered it have been photographed for cultural and medical texts.

I was about to type the same thing. I think that woman is actually one of the same women I saw on a documentary.

[Mosherette]

Originally Posted by granola shoes

the bound foot was referred to as a "lotus foot" (I think?)

Jung Chang makes mention of the ideal female foot being three inches in length, and referred to as "three inch golden lilies". (IIRC)

For any French-speakers here, La mémoire de l'eau by Ying Chen is set for the most part in China, at the time the practice of foot binding was coming to an end.

The ideal feet are compared to lotus flowers here as well.

We studied this back in secondary school. It was mentioned to be a painful practice. However I've never seen pictures until today. And I think painful is an understatement. Can't believe this was considered classy.

[Missie]

Originally Posted by granola shoes

I remember reading about this in a book I have called "The Underground Education" ( http://www.amazon.com/Underground-Ed.../dp/0385483767 ).

The book mentions foot binding as a sexual thing: the bound foot was referred to as a "lotus foot" (I think?) and ideally it would be small enough to fit in the mouth. The toes folded under look (intentionally or not) similar to the labia folds.

I'll have to look in the book again when I get home.

I remember hearing once that the 'preferred site for intercourse' for the husband was in that little fold in the bound foot. :-P I think it was in a book I have somewhere about physical curiosities, I should try to track it down sometime.

[Syllavus]

I'm amazed that women is able to walk around even with a cane on those feet. I can't imagine how incredibly painful that process must have been to go through. Does anyone else think that the shape the bound foot takes on is reminiscent of a high-heeled shoe, with the pointy toe and the highly pronounced divet between the heel and the crushed arch? I wonder if some shoe designs were at one point inspired by the bound foot? Creepy to think of. I am however glad that these women are being photographed and interviewed while they're still around, this is a practice that shouldn't be forgotten. It shouldn't be done anymore of course, but we shouldn't forget that it was done to living breathing women.

I always wonder with things such as this that deal with mutilation that starts in childhood, who on earth was the first person to think of it? Like, who had the big idea that breaking the bones in your child's foot and binding the foot up to make it look smaller was a great idea? Not to mention how prevalent it became throughout the country. I just can't wrap my brain around it, the same thing with the castrati, it just horrifies me to think of some of the things that have been done historically.

I wonder if there are skeletal remains anywhere of women who had-had bound feet? I would be somewhat morbidly fascinated to see what the actual foot bones wound up looking like.

[Lainie]

Originally Posted by Missie

I remember hearing once that the 'preferred site for intercourse' for the husband was in that little fold in the bound foot. :-P I think it was in a book I have somewhere about physical curiosities, I should try to track it down sometime.

A friend recounted reading something similar. I'd look for a cite, but I'm not sure I want to perform that Google search, and I know I don't want to perform it at work.

[Syllavus]

Originally Posted by Lainie

A friend recounted reading something similar. I'd look for a cite, but I'm not sure I want to perform that Google search, and I know I don't want to perform it at work.

I've come across that anecdote as well, but I've also heard that on the contrary, the foot was almost always kept bound and covered as the feet were often quite smelly due to the heavy wrappings that they were always kept in, and because of the fact that gangrene sometimes set in, especially in the folded-over toes as toenails often would grow into the skin. The latter scenario seems more likely to me in light of the condition of the feet, which makes me wonder if the notion that the feet were used sexually is more speculation, due to people making the, "Oh those crazy orientals and their sexual deviency" claims. But who knows.

ETA: Wikipedia mentions under "Reception and Appeal" that the feet were never unwrapped, but I'm still looking for more information.

ETA: This website also mentions that the idea of the small foot was erotic, but doesn't mention the foot being used as an actual orifice It has a few cites. It also mentions a first-hand account of a woman whose feet were bound, and she specifically mentions the unpleasant smell that the feet would develop.

ETA: I believe that this article shows the woman from the pictures.

[Nonny Mouse]

Originally Posted by Syllavus

I wonder if there are skeletal remains anywhere of women who had-had bound feet? I would be somewhat morbidly fascinated to see what the actual foot bones wound up looking like.

A Google image search turned up the following links:

http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/...ootbinding.gif

http://home.tiscali.nl/adoptie/china...t_binding2.jpg

http://content.answers.com/main/cont...et_(X-ray).jpg

http://www.grumblemagazine.com/artic...a-footbind.gif

http://www.hmc.org.qa/hmc/heartviews...s/golden22.jpg

No actual bones but some sketches and x-rays.

Nonny

[Nonny Mouse]

Skeletal waffles

[Kitsune27]

I found another site that mentions that the beginning of footbinding came about because a princess was born with a clubfoot and asked her father to force his female subjects into binding their feet so that she wouldn't stand out, which I had always heard/ Afterwards, it just became standard practice.
http://www.vueweekly.com/articles/default.aspx?i=5142

[ganzfeld]

Originally Posted by Artemis

Just came in to say that footbinding wasn't a Japanese practice.

As far as I know, it was never practiced in Japan or Korea. I have been told it was the Japanese who first made it illegal in many parts of China. (This is sometimes cited among the so-called "good things Japanese occupiers did for China." So I hasten to add, in case there is any doubt, that I do not think this or any other actions legitimize that aggression in any way.) I've also heard that the Japanese occupiers forced women who already had bound feet to unbind them, which caused even more suffering. I've never confirmed either of these stories.

[Syllavus]

This website has some first-hand accounts from women who were forced to unbind their feet. It seems that once the bones are broken and the foot is bound, the feet are unable to support any weight without the support of the bindings.

[Morrigan]

Originally Posted by Missie

I remember hearing once that the 'preferred site for intercourse' for the husband was in that little fold in the bound foot. :-P I think it was in a book I have somewhere about physical curiosities, I should try to track it down sometime.

"....Bound feet became objects of erotic fancy, to be unbound only in the doudoir; to catch a glimpse of a beloved's naked foot was thought to be bliss. The knowledgeable worshiper nibbled watermelon seeds and almonds from between his lover's contorted toes and caressed the stunted feet while making love. Sex manuals devoted many pages to the proper way to hold a foot...."

Article: "Flowery Toes" Book: All the Rage, part of the Library of Curious and Unusual Facts from Time Life.

Morrigan

[Morrigan]

Originally Posted by ganzfeld

As far as I know, it was never practiced in Japan or Korea. I have been told it was the Japanese who first made it illegal in many parts of China. (This is sometimes cited among the so-called "good things Japanese occupiers did for China." So I hasten to add, in case there is any doubt, that I do not think this or any other actions legitimize that aggression in any way.) I've also heard that the Japanese occupiers forced women who already had bound feet to unbind them, which caused even more suffering. I've never confirmed either of these stories.

From the same book quoted above: "The Manchu emperors of the 17th and 18th centuries tried and failed to outlaw foot-binding, which had its practical side as well: a maiden could not hope to land a husband with the ugly feet of the unbound. In the social upheaval following China's revolution of 1911 & 1912, the emancipation of the Chinese women was begun. Wives were encouraged to be independent of their husbands and binding was attacked as a tool of female subjugation....Laws were passed forbidding the practice, but it persisted until the government's Ministry of Domestic Affairs began to enforce the laws aggressively in 1928. Fines were instituted and inspectors swept through the countryside unbinding the feet of all girls under the age of 15. An educational campaign was put in place and within a generation the feet of Chinese women had been freed from the deforming grip of the "lotus."

According to most accounts, the practice began when noblewomen decided to emulate court dancers during the ninth-century Tang dynasty. The dancers bound their feet when enacting the story of an Indian princess whose feet were tiny and delicate, like a doe's, and whose footprints resembled lotus flowers, a symbol of fecundity."

Morrigan

[Syllavus]

Originally Posted by Morrigan

"....Bound feet became objects of erotic fancy, to be unbound only in the doudoir; to catch a glimpse of a beloved's naked foot was thought to be bliss. The knowledgeable worshiper nibbled watermelon seeds and almonds from between his lover's contorted toes and caressed the stunted feet while making love. Sex manuals devoted many pages to the proper way to hold a foot...."

Article: "Flowery Toes" Book: All the Rage, part of the Library of Curious and Unusual Facts from Time Life.

Morrigan

From reading the accounts of women who actually bound their feet, I think that the eroticizing of the feet may have mostly been fantasy. I'm sure that the bound foot decked out in it's fancy shoes was definitely considered an erotic part of the women's body, but I have doubts that any actual sexplay involved the unwrapped naked foot. From the women's descriptions, the foot starts to expand as soon as it is unwrapped, and the expansion is quite painful. When they unwrap their feet to care for them, they finish the cleansing and rewrap as soon as they can to minimize the pain. Several women also mention that the unwrapping of the feet was always done in secret, away from the husband so that the feet remained an alluring object of mystery in their lavishly decorated shoes.

I also think that a great deal of the sexual focus on the "golden lotus" feet was on the shoes the women wore. Women used to make their own shoes covered in embroidery and fancy patterns, and women were expected to have a large dowry of shoes before a husband would agree to marry them. A woman also wore several pairs of shoes on her wedding day, and the color shoes you were able to wear all depended on your age, social standing, or the occasion. All this focus on the shoes leads me to think that the bound feet were appreciated not just for being small, but for being beautifully decorated by the shoes. I think that the shoes were a big part of the sexual appeal that the feet had.

I wouldn't doubt that there were pornographic manuals and books at the time describing in detail what erotic things one could do with a woman's "golden lotuses", but what I wonder is how many of these erotic fantasies were actually carried out, or whether they were little more than fantasies?

Of course what modern women with bound feet went through, and what the women who lived in the past centuries that foot-binding was practiced went through, could be two different things. The attitudes toward the bound foot and the degree with which they were kept under-wraps (sheesh, put not intended, but there it is) and the focus on the shoes could have changed over-time.

I'm just quite dubious that it was common for husbands to utilize the foot in sexplay without it's bindings and fancy shoes. Of course, t'is just my opinion I've developed based on what I've read about bound feet.

[Ms. K]

Originally Posted by We'veBeenHad

Thanks! I love that site

There was a commercial campaign when I was growing up about Calgon, that would have someone going into a Chinese laundry and asking how on earth they got those clothes smelling so clean and fresh. The Chinese launderer would say, "That's ancient Chinese secret!" His wife would call from the back, "Hey honey, we need more Calgon!" The customer would turn to the sheepish launderer and say reprovingly, "Ancient Chinese SEcret, huhhhh?" The first Wayne's World movie referenced it too, with that exact line. In the 70s there were only 3 real channels (and a handful of locals, and PBS) and commercials ran pretty much throughout our entire childhoods, so we know them all by heart

OOooooh I found one! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojm1Xzwlc9Q

My God, I remember that commercial from the deepest recesses of my childhood memories......

[TB Tabby]

The way I heard it, women with tiny feet were regarded as status symbols, not sex objects. The logic was that any man who could financially support a wife who could barely walk on her own must be very wealthy indeed.