The lust for a foot in a high heel has long captured the attention

After another interest rate hike from the Reserve Bank, it’s time to put the feet to work and spin them into money makers.

Wiggling my tootsies, it seems the time has finally come.

Yet another interest rate hike from the Reserve Bank means only one thing: a side hustle.

So is it time to put the feet to work and spin them into money makers?

As someone who has always been complimented on having exceptionally high arches, not necessarily from podiatrists, the feet have long been lusted over.

Is it time to put the feet to work and spin them into money makers?

Working in Japan’s Roppongi district in the noughties as a hostess-with-the-mostess (another side hustle, this time as a backpacker), was an introduction to foot fetishes.

It was in the depths of Tokyo’s nightclub district that I first caught wind of the foot kink.

A Kiwi colleague had just bounced into the cramped Tatami-mat-sized changing room at the Roppongi nightclub Jungle Fire, holding fistfuls of yen.

Breathless, she exclaimed all she’d had to do for the “salary men” as they were called, was slowly remove a stockinged foot from her high heel (over and over again).

This seemed like easy money considering I had just spent the good half of a shift singing Billy Joel’s “Honesty” on repeat. Staring down at dandruff falling like snowflakes onto the shoulder padded suit of a salary man half my height, we slow-danced to the bellowing lyrics: “Honesty is such a wonery word,” he sang. “Everyone is so untroooooooooo”.

Singing karaoke seemed a far harder grind than giving the ol’ feet a wee wiggle but they never had a chance to leave the stiletto with a change of heart soon seeing me travel to further shores.

The feet have since remained firmly in sock.

Some 20-odd years later and it seems the Scotch-soaked Japanese salary men were onto something. There is money to be made selling pictures of your feet.

The higher the stiletto the better.

There is money to be made selling pictures of your feet.

The lust for a foot in a high heel has long captured the attention.

High heels were worn by men in the 10th century on Persian cavalry to help keep soldiers’ feet in stirrups. Butchers in Ancient Egypt back in 3500BC were also credited with wearing an elevated shoe, making it easier to walk over carcasses without blood on their feet.

Centuries on, the high heel became seen as a sign of nobility, power and wealth. France’s King Louis XIV wore red heels as a symbol of his authority.

Later the heel fell out of fashion with men. The first recorded instance of a high-heeled shoe being worn by a woman was by the short-in-stature Machiavellian Queen Catherine de Medici in the 16th century.

But the razor-thin stiletto is a 20th century invention.

Named after an Italian knife with a slender blade and needle-sharp point, the heel was refashioned in the 1950s when new materials and techniques invented for aircraft carriers were applied to shoe construction.

The razor-thin stiletto is a 20th century invention. Picture: Josie Hayden

Fetishistic aspects of the stiletto quickly gained a reputation as a powerful tool of seduction.

The structure of the shoe elongates the leg, forcing the chest to jut forward, the bottom backwards, all the while accentuating a woman’s curve, creating a sought-after silhouette.

A neuroscientist and senior lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Tara Swart, says our affinity for heels may be buried deep in our subconscious.

Back in the cave-dwelling days, height was an evolutionary advantage, allowing female hunter-gatherers to reach food that otherwise would have been inaccessible.

Also, the whole breasts-and-butt-out stance helped lure a caveman into a progeny-inducing leg over.

But one thing not noted in the history books, is how much the damn things can hurt.

“Well that’s just ridiculous,” the 10-year-old said as I tried to explain why I was squeezing my poor, tired tootsies into another pair of high heels.

Not for kinky online site Feet Finder mind you, but for another day working at Flemington racecourse across the Melbourne Cup Carnival last week.

He was confused and dumbfounded, as I stumbled about for an answer, reeling off strict VRC dress codes and what not.

“But why can’t you just wear sneakers, you’re working aren’t you?” he replied, unknowingly displaying some unconscious push against patriarchy.

“Um, well, they also make my legs look pretty good,” was my feeble response, realising why women wearing heels is a long and complicated feminist debate.

So as I look down at the wiggling tootsies, I realise any hope of a secondary vocation selling feet pictures online might have been a tad hasty.

The poor feet have copped a battering thanks to those heels during the Spring Carnival and are looking more like the aforementioned cave dwellers than lucrative money spinners.

Hmmm. Quickly Googles, is there a cavewoman foot fetish to cash in on?