barefooting and valentine's day do kind of go together. both basically non-issues that people like to make a thing out of.
I went to a restaurant followed by a movie with my boyfriend today. Weather has not been as bad, but still damp and a little chilly. I was barefoot and he was booted, we went to traditional country pub for an English roast dinner and then went to see Deadpool. Going out this evening with a couple of friends for drinks, just waiting for my babysitter Shayla x
Barefooters have been around for decades. Even occasionally showing off tougher dirty feet has been around, but not as frequents as barefoot forums or pages. Barefoot almost fanaticism, even if not fetish, has it's origins in the Usenet newsgroup alt.barefoot that, when overly spammed, moved to alt.lifestyle.barefoot. The creator off alt.barefoot and alt.lifestyle.barefoot was even trying to arrange meetups, before the forming of the Dirty Soles Society. DSS even had an FAQ. Society of Barefoot Living evolved from the DSS. some of which has been migrated from the same FAQ. To be honest, most of the look-I-went-barefoot-here photos are so what: anyone can walk in barefoot, it's just a matter of whether they get stopped at the entrance, confronted by a manager or left alone. A lot of that is depending on having a specific intent to buy items at a store, not just wandering the store trying to bait trouble about bare feet. On occasion I have been confronted by a manager or supervisor, no matter how polite or upset... they did let me finish shopping because I actually had items in the basket or shopping cart! I wasn't there for a cause, to stage a barefoot vs. store staff or manager problem. One example? "No bare feet, by order of the health department" Ample DSS/SBL letter writing campaigns, guess what? Not a health department issue! Store solution: Shoes required in store: now it's store policy. Ignore it? Fine, but when confronted... they didn't claim health department, they didn't claim by law... it's their business, their rules. As far as I can tell, barefooters aren't in a protected class at the federal or state government... and again, barefooters have been decades before DSS/SBL!~ Then at some point we also got Barefoot Is Legal. I'm going to say questionable and not needed is Parents for Barefoot Children. Many parents already let their children run barefoot, watching out for too cold, too hot, and hurt-the-feet hazards... without a making a specific point of it, or even posting candid photos of other than their own children that are otherwise none of their business. Anyway... In a positive way, this brought out many barefooters who didn't specifically talk about it. Yes, this included barefoot experiences and trouble, showing off the feet in terms of toughness and how they look (dirty, dusty, callused) at the end of a particularly long and challenging (rough and/or hot, but I have a hard time believing this snowfooting stuff when a short barefoot walk in US 32 degrees F temperature had my soles tingling in two minutes, and took over 10 minutes to warm up again). Anyway, I was burning my soles and even blistering my soles long before barefoot forums. I did ask for advice, mainly to extend the amount of walking so I either didn't blister at all or only got them by the end of the walk... but take it or leave it, burning and blistering is a normal part of the summer hot sidewalk and even hotter asphalt experience! I already used to stand on the asphalt until I had to close my eyes and grit my teeth, but I did have a grassy area (that didn't get hot like some grassy areas actually do particularly hot weather!) so I could do that for minutes at a time until the soles burned quite red. Blistering was usually done outside the neighborhood, and I was getting good at hiding it only because my walks were very short with deliberate standing and slower walking. Fast forward to today and I am trying to get my soles as heat-proof at possible to miles of walking and minutes or standing, even if moving the feet, during high heat. If I find myself on a vacation in a desert area in summer, it's going to be high heat bordering on extreme heat even a couple of hours before the hottest afternoon hours, and then increasingly hot excessive heat for several hours more. Ouch! While I would obviously avoid 3rd degree burns, I would carefully push the heat... and have flat footbed flip flops with me... to see how fast it built up before needing to wear the flip flops to avoid quick blisters. At the same time, because I do consider blisters as normal, and I often get criticized for how often I mentioned bare feet, high or extreme heat, and blisters, that's no different than discussing how awesomely dirty some wants their soles, even to the point of wiping them on dirty floors or even oil slicks (I did that years ago and outgrew it when I got tired of having to scrub the oil off or stand a run, floor, and shower or bathtub. As for nudists... I'm rather new to these forums and contribute to barefoot as best as possible, even if I get slammed for long and detailed posts, but I also wonder why nudism gets into the barefoot section when Bare It specifically has a nudism/naturalism section. I suppose that is up to the moderators... Everything, too long didn't read, is that barefooters only became "an odd bunch" when pages and forums existed so they could discuss various parts of going barefoot that were already obvious: too cold, too hot, burned soles, cuts, splinters, friction or heat blisters (and side note, I'm not sure about this barefoot running thing other than on beach sand, but that's also just me), barefoot appearance, getting away with going barefoot, getting kicked out of stores and sneaking in again... and made it a cause rather than just something they did. Going to Facebook, that's not wise because businesses are there too, and they can simply bookmark a public SBL or other barefooter page and follow it for how they are fighting the businesses. Do I still go barefoot in businesses? Sure, and in one case when I was doing a Coinstar thing, I even pulled my flip flops halfway out of my pack and then put them back in. They could see, and on camera... I had shoes, but chose not to wear them. I didn't make a specific point of showing off my soles and for that matter I didn't even look at my feet. No shopping cart. No basket. Wandered the store only because I wasn't familiar with the layout. Asked a meat department staff member and a senior clerk where to find two items. Checked out. The manager was in plain sight. Whether or not they saw my feet wasn't brought up, and the only time I "showed my soles" was when I dropped something and had to kneel down to get it. Still, no one called to me wait, or hold on, or for that matter even followed me out of the store to reprimand me about bare feet. If they said it to themselves, I didn't hear it. Get all that? When appropriate, I will post long. Sometimes moderators have locked topics, other times they have criticized the posts, occasionally deleted posts, and the majority times they have taken no action. That's what I have to say about my barefoot experiences for decades, since the forums started appearing. I don't have to, but if it will help a starting out barefooting, if it will help and established barefooter prepare for heat if they move from the coast to a hotter inland area, especially a valley... must posts will stand.
