When I was very young, there came a certain point in life when I refused to be seen in my socks! Why? And at what point did this happen? I don’t know when it happened or why, but the point is that it did happen. And now I need to come to terms with that fear I have over being exposed in socks.
What happened at that time was kind of weird but I want to share it anyway. I somehow came to associate socks with something that belonged to girls, and not to me, so it felt embarrassing for me to be wearing only socks. As a result, I either covered my stocking feet with a blanket, or I ended up wearing slippers most of the time. The second terrible thing that happened is that I started to have this strong desire for girls wearing socks. And that desire burned inside me like an inner fire. I couldn’t even pronounce the word “socks” because I associated it with girls and all the fears that I had around being with girls and having forbidden desires for girls.
There is nothing more torturous than associating one thing with so many overwhelming feelings, including the vague anxiety that comes with forbidden sexual desires. I wanted very much to be a girl, so that I could once again enjoy the comfort of wearing socks without embarrassment, but somehow I could not do this anymore: I had to be “a boy” or a “man” and leave this sensory soft world behind because not doing so would leave me feeling exposed and self conscious.
I have learned recently (and am still learning), that there is no sense trying to appeal to girls and women to deal with this kind of problem. One reason is that a woman cannot simply expose her socks to me all day. I wouldn’t even want that either, since it would only exacerbate suffering and anxiety. And secondly, it’s unfair and immoral to treat women in the way of reducing them to an article of clothing. Thirdly, I am a grown up, and I need to take responsibility for myself. It is wrong for me to ask that a woman “solve” this problem. It’s my habit to do so, but lately, I have found that this path leads only to more and more frustration and anxiety.
The better solution is for me to write this blog and start to get used to talking about and seeing my own socks. I want to eventually come to a point where I am not trying to project this love of socks onto a female who is willing to “participate” in my fantasy. Instead, I should accept that fact that I do enjoy the texture and sight of socks. I should learn and come to accept that the anxiety I feel comes from splitting myself into male and female, and then disowning parts of me that I have rejected and eventually projected into women around me. And these “rejected” parts of me only come back to haunt me in the form of strange infatuations that lead absolutely nowhere. They are only the hidden projections of my early shame about wearing socks.
It’s a very radical shift for me to say with confidence that socks can be a part of my identification as a male, but it does require that I stop seeing things in terms of stereotyped notions of what “male” and “female” mean. From the start, I don’t want to get caught up in these endless assignments of things “masculine” and “feminine”. I want to be able to stop thinking about socks in such extreme ways. I imagine a day when socks will be so “everyday” that I don’t even feel a need to write about them. That will be a day when socks will be as mundane as wearing a pair of mittens. I hope someday that I can see socks in this way that most people see them, and to stop associating them with a crazy sort of lust.
But alongside of this de-stigmatization of socks comes a replacement of “desire” for women with respect for women. True respect does not reduce women to objects of desire or fetishes. And the true respect for women is more precious than any desire. I hope that one day my desire are replaced with a simple respect and appreciation.
boysocks318 