Whats with the obssesion?

Not wanting to offend anyone, but im just really quite curious, what is with the obssesion of walking around bare foot?

We do it ALL THE TIME here (in New Zealand) and we don't think anything of it.
Or maybe im just taking the fact that we can and do walk around bare foot, for granted?

But will some one just please explain this to me..........Please?

 

its accepted in some countries, the usa is uptight about such stuff. cant go barefoot shopping, restaurants, schools etc..its just not common.

i can get away with it some places, out door stuff, and the movie theatre. and fast food places..but thats about it.

 

I don't think it's an obsession, but many people on this site enjoy going barefoot and like talking about it.

 

The U.S. doesn't have the freedoms that NZ has, unfortunately. It's difficult for someone outside the U.S. to know the quirks of the U.S. (look at the big controversy about Janet Jackson baring a nipple). It's also difficult for someone inside the U.S. to understand the freedoms that other countries have.

A lot of people here haven't gone barefoot much outdoors or at stores because most people wear shoes all the time and many stores don't allow it. It's a new experience to many so they like to post about it.

I wish it was like NZ here.

 

In my opinion it's the freedom of being without shoes, the feeling of the earth beneath your feet and the challenge of going into the establishments here in the US that say that "you can't come come in here like that". In our society if you challenge those phantom laws that merchants here have creatated and win, it's a big deal.

 

i think its the fact that its so absurdly unaccepted here in the states that we feel that we have to 'band together' and share our feelings about it. i think if it wasnt so taboo we wouldnt talk about it so much. it should be 'nothing but a thing' like it is elsewhere. *sigh*

 

I agree with you, I've spent weeks barefoot, no one minds, and I don't really see the huge deal with talking about it. I think some people kinda take it to an extreme.

I try to live by the philosophy "don't do anything just for the sake of doing it" If you want to go barefoot, do, if not, don't....

it's simple if you let it be

 

hmmmm.. you make a good point paix, my friend.

i try to live by a similar philosophy: "live simply so that others may simply live."

 

Well you gotta admit its nice to talk with other barefooters. Not too many places you can do that. Barefooting is still unacceptable a lot here in canada too. Been kicked out of many places. Anyways im off to fix my igloo, my feet melted footprints in the floor (haha i had to say that =)

 

I guess we here in NZ kinda just dont think about going bare foot much, I mean, at primary school, we kind of just grew up running around playing on the grass bare foot.

But what i dont understand is, in places where its not accepted at all, do they send you away because of safety reasons or because they just like to decriminate against people with no shoes?

 

I wish I grew up in NZ. I was looking around on the web and I found that the schools of many countries (other than the U.S.) often do PE barefoot. Some kids just come to school barefoot. In the U.S., PE is almost always done in shoes and most schools don't allow barefooting. It's a cultural thing.

The 'no shoes no service' signs seem to be dying out in the U.S. It was probably the worst in the 70s. I've always felt that the NS signs were meant to keep hippie type people out of establishments, as going barefoot was popular with the hippie culture in the 60s. The NS signs started going up in the early 70s, which seemed to be a reponse to the 60s culture.

The rationale today is probably more about safety reasons and fear of lawsuits. I think much of it is just a social stigma. Some people just consider bare feet to be unsightly or not polite. I don't really know why it's like this in the U.S. It may be because the U.S. is an industrialized culture and people are socialized to wear shoes. Every culture has certain quirks, and this is one of them in the U.S.

 

I go barefoot everywhere and really enjoy it, but I don't really get that excited about talking about it.. since it doesn't seem to me like there's really much to say. I'm barefoot. SO? I guess I do tend to preach about the health benefits sometimes....but not very often. I mostly don't speak.

 

When i was little, wearing shoes while doing P.E was and felt stupid. We felt like the shoes were restricting our movement and us being able to run faster.
So over here, if your doing P.E in shoes, everyone kind of encourages you to take them off.

 

That's cool. I walk, jog, and exercise barefoot now. It feels much better than shoes.

 

Let's not misstate things, here. The U.S. is absolutely no less free than NZ is. In fact, there are NOT laws against going barefoot in the U.S.

According to what I've read, the "rules" against going barefoot -- and then the myth that it's illegal -- arose when hippies in the '60s went barefoot all over, and just like literacy tests were used to keep black from voting via the Jim Crow laws, it was thought that shop-owners could keep hippies out of their stores by banning bare feet. I guess maybe that's where the claims of "health codes" started; a lie to give an air of false legitimacy to the assertions of the prejudiced shopkeepers.

As far as why I am "obsessed" with going barefoot? I'm not "obsessed." Like you, I would think of it as just life as usual, except the bias against being barefoot everywhere I would want to be presents a problem sometimes, and as a result "barefooters" take the ability to go barefoot as less for granted than people in other cultures do.

Blue skies,
-Jeffrey

 

It's not simple if YOU let it be but others WON'T.

You try going barefoot, as I have, at certain Denny's restaurants, or Walmart, where they kick you out and even threaten to call the police, and see how far you get. That actually happened to me at Walmart and I had not gotten loud or nasty or anything. One bitch manager even lied to her supervisor claiming I had yelled at her, and I calmly challenged her and said, "OH? I yelled at you? Who around here will also claim that I was yelling?" I even asked a customer standing nearby, "Was I yelling?" There were other employees around and the woman finally admitted I had not yelled. But that's how irrational people get when you challenge their "established notions" about things like whether the law, the health department, or even store policy prohibits free people from going barefoot if they choose to.

So please, don't tell us that it's only a big deal because we make it a big deal. I don't make any such big deal out of it -- and it never becomes an issue until and unless some ignorant control freak tries to dictate what I may or may not do with my own life and my own body. But it does happen, and it happens far more regularly than you know.

Through the mailing list of the Society for Barefoot Living, I've read enough stories to indicate there is truth to the notion that attractive females are bothered by "authorities" FAR less often than typical (even good-looking) guys...

Blue skies,
-Jeffrey

 

Dude, you're off base, and I honestly don't understand why you come to this forum (Bare It) if you are OPPOSED to what we do! If you don't like the fact that we like to go barefoot, and that we like to post about it, then just bugger off! Are we bothering you? YOU came HERE. This IS where we're supposed to talk about this stuff.

And since there is nothing wrong with going barefoot, and it does not put out even one single person, nobody is justified in putting it down, and especially not trying to prevent it. You can call it a "childish barefoot obsession," but you're perpetuating just what you criticized Blackie for doing. The only difference is, he IS right and you're WRONG. He IS right when he says things are screwed up when people in stores take bigger issue and have a bigger problem with a harmless barefoot customer than they do with all kinds of other disgusting or harmful things.

So if you don't like the fact that we object to people trying to run our lives, just leave, and don't read posts here. What the hell keeps you here, anyway?

-Jeffrey

 

because I like to accept my feet as a part of my family... I mean without feet you would have stumps... So I just like to rejoice in the fact that I have feet!! feet are cute too.. they have the cutest toes...

 

if it were up to me, i would never wear shoes again.. but like i said earlier..my job requires it.. and stores like walmart and other corporate chains are against it.. makes no sense whatsoever...when i was out of school during summer break ever since i was like a little kid..no shoes for the summer.

 

I'm glad people can't go bare foot wherever they want, its fine outside, but I don't want to see it inside at say, a restaurant, just like I don't want to see someone without a shirt on where I'm eating....that DOES put someone out...

but outside, I'd go barefoot, or not, and I would expect others to do the same.