This is probably a strange question to ask given this forum, but I'll ask it anyway. Forgive me if this is redundant with another thread in this forum, but I didn't find anything in recent history that asked this question bluntly. Is it okay/acceptable to go barefoot in public? If you check my posts, you'll find I do it all the time. Rarely do I get a negative reaction. However, I googled a few related topics (e.g., "like going barefoot" or "like being barefoot") and found some interesting comments. There were a variety of on-line polls on whether people liked being barefoot. I saw a lot of comments that people don't wear shoes at home, but thought the practice is rude or disgusting in public. Personally I've never thought of the practice in these terms. I'll admit I'm in the minority going out barefoot, but I've never thought of it as offensive, just different. I find being barefoot is comfortable, convenient, and a simple extension of how I am at home. What do others think about going barefoot in public?
Straight toes - I feel the same way you do. It's enjoyable and I like to see others baring their soles too. There are no laws against it and it does no harm. I see it as one of lifes simple pleasures whether at home or out and about.
i would assume people find it not okay to be barefoot in public because of some fears of germs.. :icon_bs: which is just silly in my opinion. i think shoes are far dirtier than naked feet. how often do people wash their shoes? and stop breathing on me.. your getting your lung germs all over me.. i'd rather see a bunch of barefeet than coughing sick people out and about.
I know not why people are judgmental about other being barefoot, but they are. It should be no one business but the person who is barefoot. Most restaurants will not seat you if you are barefoot. But, I go in wearing my flip flop. Never been refused. I set down and take off the sandals, and no one as ever asked me to put them back on. It's a funny world we live in.
It is a little different... but it's NOT illegal and if youre minding your own business and not breaking the law, what's the problem. The same people who would complain about a barefoot person is the same type of person who finds mohawks offensive... or different colored hair... etc. If you don't like to see bare feet.... LOOK SOMEWHERE ELSE!!!! .... oh and they should also complain about flip flop wearers because their feet are visible too.
I agree with you. I have never figured out why I can go anywhere with my flip flop on, but not barefoot. It show the hypocrisy of our society.
> Is it okay/acceptable to go barefoot in public? it should be everyone's free descision wheter to go barefoot or shoed. I don't mind meeting barefoot people wheresoever (on the contrary, i always feel happy seeing someone). Of course you should care for some politenes, for example not to visit the opera in your dirty feet after you just did dig up your garden ;-)
I'm sure I will continue the practice. My starting this thread was based on two factors. First, every year when it gets warm it takes me a few days to get comfortable with going out barefoot. I think this is because it's new to me after wearing shoes during the cold winter and also because I start to question the appropriateness of the practice. One or two errands and I'm quickly over this concern and just start going barefoot everywhere without a thought and leave my shoes at home (i.e., no "safety net"). The second factor causing me to start this thread was the nature of some people's comments on the polls I found when I googled (see 1st post to this thread). People used words like "rude" and "disgusting" in referring to bare feet in public. Granted, this was a small sampling of the population, but it struck me as a bit severe. I've often thought that there is a small percentage of people (2-3% or so) who will go barefoot in public either all/most of the time or perhaps on isolated occasions. Then I think there's a larger percentage (95%+?) who wouldn't be barefoot in public themselves, but accept/tolerate it by other people. Finally, I think the remaining small percentage has a strong distaste for the practice and will challenge/confront those who are barefoot. I really think that when one is denied service somewhere it has less to do with company policy and more to do with the manager or employee being part of this third group. In general, the reactions to my bare feet have either been ambivalent or surprisingly positive.
I'd bring the percentage of people who don't do it, but tolerate it down to 75% and the people who hate it up to about 23%. The other two percent love it.
Now, thats a neat formula. Let's calculate from there... in the beginning of 2009, the world populace is about 6.75 billion people... 2% of those being barefoot lovers: 13.5 million people being happily barefoot. Let's get those together and form our own country!! And this could be how the barefoot state border looked like... Leave your shoes here when entering: (from Big Fish, but I am sure people know that...) arty: wiggling toes in favour of a barefoot nation, ~*Ganesha*~
I've had very few negative experiences going anywhere barefoot. The few times I have gotten an odd comment, I've found that as soon as I start speaking with the individual, things become pretty amiable. I think there's a stigma that if you're barefoot in public you must be mentally unstable. As soon as I prove myself rational, things are okay. Like you, when I wear flip-flops to a restaurant or bar, I usually kick them off as soon as I'm seated. I've never been asked to put them back on. I guess businesses just want you to have shoes for the 30-ft walk from the front door to the table! Throughout my life, even before I got serious about being barefoot, I never thought of someone barefoot as wrong, rude, or offensive. I actually admired their confidence and envied them. I'm just surprised when I see comments that people have so much energy against this practice.
Hi StraightToes, Thank you for the comments on my post. If you have read other post that I have made on the subject you know that it was not negative reactions to being barefoot that forced me into flip flop sandals, but environmental consideration. Namely, tiny splinter of glass that I seem to forever having to extracts from my feet. However, because throng sandals seem to be "politically acceptable" in places that bare feet are not, I have found it easier just to wear the sandals most of the time, and take them off and carry them or slid them under the set when I can. It's a sorry state. I would not even spend money on shoes at all if I could be barefoot everywhere I go. At lease I work for a company that does not care if I ware sandals (Even throng sandals), and that allow me to be barefoot in my cubical. I hate shoes. I own one pair of hard shoes because I have to go to company event that are semi-formal. One pair of boots (From my motorcycle days.) that I have not warn of years. One of the reason I stopped riding the motorcycle was I was tried of wearing the boots. jnorton <(^o^)>
yo straight toes, go for it. i live in london and go barefoot all the time, nobody minds in this multiracial city - i guess they'd not notice here if you went out bareassed either. if someone has an attitude, then, honest, its their problem, just be gentle with them and usually the;yll be gentle back. the only bad experienc i've had in a morew or less lifetime of going barefoot was once air canada wouldnt let me onboard but another passenger kindly gave me their spare flip flops, which i took off once in the cabin. its best in the summer tho when its warm, but you can enjoy frost and snow too if you just practice goin' really light, and using the ball of your foot! dharma blessings, koryu
I lived in New Zealand for a year and it's pretty common there esp. in the south Island and in pockets of eco - friendly living areas, lots of teens don't bother wearing shoes in the summer months, you see families shopping in the supermarket with no shoes on and I've been to the cinema where there have been loads of people with no shoes. Kids still hitch a lift to the next town to visit mates and it's all kind cool and chilled out. I really wanna live there!! Maybe i need to find myself a Kiwi husband! YUM!
Think this very small percentage of people that like to be 'helpful' and point out the inconsiderate /discusting /illegal /stupid nature of barefooting... ...will do the very same about just about anything else. Some misguided parental instinct or perhaps it gives them a rush, who knows..? If people would obey, we soon would be wearing walking-helmets, rifid-tags, dark glasses and a blank facial expression.
Hence my concern at control freaks, or when normal people act like sheep and blindly follow without questioning. I think most control freakery can be dispelled easily, but we as a culture just don't. (Dispel it.) I don't know why---
Where i live, N.E.England, there is no opposition to going barefoot. It's quite rare, of course, but no one ever criticises me for it. I often go hiking with other (booted) walkers, and they are quite impressed, envious, even. They are the ones who get the blisters! The last comment i heard was "there's someone who doesn't need boots!"
