dangerous heels – concentrated in the tip of a stiletto heel can be equivalent to approximately forty atmospheric pressures, or, in another more sensationalist analogy, to far greater pressure than a four-tonne elephant standing on one foot.2
In case the evidence above presents as somewhat flippant, National Geographic weighed into the argument in 2006 by citing a professor of physics at the University of Virginia as confirming that “the heel of a walking woman [or, surely, a man] weighing 100 pounds (45 kilograms) can exert a pressure up to 2,000 pounds per square inch (140 kilograms per square centimeter)”.3 And the distinguished British fashion historian Colin McDowell writes: “A woman of average height exerts two tons of weight per square inch on a stiletto heel”.4
While all these statistics do not necessarily tally with each other – McDowell, for example, is apparently using a heavier example of humanity for his figures – the message is clear. Although death by stiletto heel is not a common cause of mortality among males, the National Geographic feature writer, Cathy Newman, assures us that “[t]he slim point marked up wood and
linoleum floors and punched through carpets; for decades, stilettos were banned from museums and public buildings”.5
This piercing potential of the stiletto heel once again reminds us of its namesake, the stiletto
dagger, which, in turn, brings us to the human preoccupation with death – not necessarily as
morbid as it may first appear. It points to the classical interplay between Eros and Thanatos –
the tension between the life drive and the death drive – not so much in opposition to each
other, but reconciled in the very embodi-
ment of our fascination with the mysterious, with the
potency of sophistication, the unknown, and of dreams lurking around the shadows of
existence, waiting for the opportunity to be realised.6
Put another way, symbolically, the stiletto heel raises the profane body to sacred heights. Particularly when combined with the accoutrements and symbols of power, or of willing submission to power, such a heel can raise the wearer’s stature with a dramatic, erotically charged style. The drama involved can be literal and can reflect, simultaneously, personal expression, a sense of fashion, glamour, and danger.
