BUT…my wife has learned that certain types of high heels are an arousal tool like no other. She never wears them outside of our home…for all the reasons you note. For she and I…it substitutes for Viagra.

She sometimes seduces me by sneaking up on me with stilleto heels on…and asks me if I’d mind if she walked on me. (She points at the shoes…and smiles.)

It is so powerful. Who can understand it?

ChuckB1117@cattle-today.com

A new study has found that wearing a pair of moderately high heels can tone the body, condition muscles and even improve a woman’s sex life without the need for onerous exercise sessions.

Maria Cerruto, a urologist at the University of Verona who led the study, said she conducted her tests because she wished to tackle “bizarre” nonscientific theories blaming high heels for a range of ills, including schizophrenia.

http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/fashion/article3295325.ece

The original article that connects high heels with schizophrenia can be found here.

Jarl Flensmark of Malmo says high heels cause their wearers to tense their calves in a way that normal walking never does. That could prevent neuro-receptors in the calf muscles from triggering release of dopamine, a compound necessary for mental well-being.

“During walking, synchronised stimuli from mechanoreceptors in the lower extremities increase activity in cerebellothalamo-cortico- cerebellar loops through their action on NMDA-receptors,” Flensmark wrote in a recent paper in the journal Medical Hypotheses.

http://www.news24.com/News24/Technology/News/0,,2-13-1443_1742951,00.html

Erich will probably like the study about high heels and schizophrenia more.

I’m also quite amused about this, because I know this journal where the second study was published. Meeting old friends gives me warm fuzzy feelings.

So, it seems wearing high heels is not that bad for you:

A new study has found that wearing a pair of moderately high heels can tone the body, condition muscles and even improve a woman’s sex life without the need for onerous exercise sessions.

Maria Cerruto, a urologist at the University of Verona who led the study, said she conducted her tests because she wished to tackle “bizarre” nonscientific theories blaming high heels for a range of ills, including schizophrenia.

http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/fashion/article3295325.ece

The original article that connects high heels with schizophrenia can be found here.

Jarl Flensmark of Malmo says high heels cause their wearers to tense their calves in a way that normal walking never does. That could prevent neuro-receptors in the calf muscles from triggering release of dopamine, a compound necessary for mental well-being.

“During walking, synchronised stimuli from mechanoreceptors in the lower extremities increase activity in cerebellothalamo-cortico- cerebellar loops through their action on NMDA-receptors,” Flensmark wrote in a recent paper in the journal Medical Hypotheses.

http://www.news24.com/News24/Technology/News/0,,2-13-1443_1742951,00.html

Erich will probably like the study about high heels and schizophrenia more.

I’m also quite amused about this, because I know this journal where the second study was published. Meeting old friends gives me warm fuzzy feelings.

A new study has found that wearing a pair of moderately high heels can tone the body, condition muscles and even improve a woman’s sex life without the need for onerous exercise sessions.

Maria Cerruto, a urologist at the University of Verona who led the study, said she conducted her tests because she wished to tackle “bizarre” nonscientific theories blaming high heels for a range of ills, including schizophrenia.

http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/fashion/article3295325.ece

I’m kind of entertained about this article, because I know this article she’s alluding to that connects high heels with schizophrenia. Now Erich has even more reason to hate high heels.

Jarl Flensmark of Malmo says high heels cause their wearers to tense their calves in a way that normal walking never does. That could prevent neuro-receptors in the calf muscles from triggering release of dopamine, a compound necessary for mental well-being.

“During walking, synchronised stimuli from mechanoreceptors in the lower extremities increase activity in cerebellothalamo-cortico- cerebellar loops through their action on NMDA-receptors,” Flensmark wrote in a recent paper in the journal Medical Hypotheses.

http://www.news24.com/News24/Technology/News/0,,2-13-1443_1742951,00.html

I also know the journal where this article was published. Oh, the world is so small.

Erin said: Therefore, men don’t have as many seemingly ridiculous ways to make themselves more physically attractive, they need to find ways to seem more secure and stable.

This was Erin explaining why men don’t have such outlandish behaviours as wearing high heels. She is saying that guys are trying to send a different kind of message.

This prompted Joseph to ask: Then why do women RARELY pick the nice/smart guy? Instead they go for the loud annoying belligerent guy.

It is the two answers that Joseph got to this question that interest me.

Erich said: Loud and belligerent guys are displaying traits that could have made them successful in less civilized times.

Which is a reference to the fact that 10,000 years ago “loud and belligerent” would have been seen as a sucessful social strategy. But then Erich points out that: In many modern settings, though, they get left behind by others who are more social and intelligent.

The conclusion is that this is no longer a successful social strategy. Which I would think is a good thing.

The other answer Joseph got was from Erin, who said: In tribal times … a man who can successfully navigate another tribe and threatening situations must have been quite the survivor - and provider.

Which is simply her own take on Erich’s “loud and belligerent” response when she is clearly referring to “tribal times.”

So my question is: If this strategy was sucessful once, but is no longer, why is it offered as the answer to Joseph’s question “Why do women do this now?” Surely these are answers to the slightly different question, “Why did women used to do this?”

If being secure and stable is, as Erin suggested, a winning strategy for a modern male, then women should be selecting for that NOW. That women still go for Mr. Loud and Obnoxious, or even for Mr. Punch You strikes me as being totally bizarre. Where is the security and stability in being some one else’s punch bag?

My real point is that evolution is supposed to move inexorably on, and when a new strategy becomes sucessful is it not supposed to be selected for, so that members who employ that strategy come to predominate?

Well it seems to me that Joseph’s question implies that he is not convinced that this newly sucessful strategy of being stable and secure is being selected for. And I agree with him. And I also do not understand why an explanation of a previously sucessful strategy is supposed to answer his question.

You can either have:

1) “Secure and stable” is a sucessful strategy for the modern man, in which case “Loud and belligerent in tribal times” does not answer Joseph’s question.

OR

2) “Secure and stable” is not a sucessful strategy.

but it seems to me that you can’t both have your cake and eat it.

“What I’m tired of is having people being so down on things like “accessorizing/cheerleading/having the lead in the school musical,” as if these are inherently bad things, or done by people who are too intellectually incompetent to be pursuing loftier hobbies.”

“Sure, some girls may turn away from math because it’s not “feminine” or because they’ll feel they need to “dumb themselves down” to get a boyfriend (topics Danica addresses in the book). But what about the step before that–*why* should girls care about being “feminine” or getting a boyfriend anyway? Obviously, the book doesn’t even try to tackle any of that, and some commenters have suggested that (as I asked Danica), she’s simply reinforcing stereotypes rather than empowering girls.”

http://scienceblogs.com/aetiology/2007/07/followup_on_math_doesnt_suck_d.php#more

http://scienceblogs.com/aetiology/2007/07/interview_with_math_whiz_autho.php

I was discussing POWER not ETHICS.

Not that it matters when discussing “power”, but from your political standpoint it may be that you perceive Ms. Rice is those things, I on the other hand do not and have much respect for the lady, - as I did for Margaret Thatcher (although I did not always agree with her politics). However, I am forever a Utilitarian whilst you I suspect are of a rather stricter Kantian ethical persuasion. As an American (USA) you are also more likely to be influenced by your particular American ‘brands’ of the many factions of the Christian Religion. Whilst for me as a ‘Brit’, coming from a country that is shockingly secular and godless by your US standards, religion is a quaint archaic custom with a few interesting philosophical truths (do unto others etc.) that are good general maxims to try to live by but is generally anachronistic where issues such as gender and sex are concerned.

This may very well account for a difference in perception on the original subject of this ‘blog’ on our separate sides of ‘the pond’. Certainly on trips to the ‘States’ over the years, I have noticed that in the Midwest of the USA in particular, women who wear clothing and shoes that are sexually attractive are more likely to be spoken of as a “slut” or “hooker” than is the case on either the Eastern or Western seaboards of your nation and certainly more so than in Europe or the UK, where such attire is quite the norm rather than the exception.

Your still predominant Anglo-Saxon-Celtic culture and language may have originated in these small islands, but we have, albeit only slightly, developed differently over the years.