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Thursday, August 9, 2012

Chinese Footbinding

Chinese Footbinding

"...this is a non-devotee instance where the dominant culture actually defined 'disabled' as desirable and sexually attractive."
There have been some intriguing posts recently on the social phenomenon of foot binding in China in the 19th century and earlier.  The discussion centred on the eroticism of physical disability on a national scale. For a thousand years women with intentionally tiny and deformed feet were considered highly erotic. These deformities were created by tightly bandaging the feet from an early age. Many girls became so deformed and disabled that they had to be carried everywhere. The origins of foot binding are unclear although evidence suggests it started as far back as the Sung dynasty  in AD 960-1280.  It was eventually banned in 1911. Here is a little information gathered from postings on Yahoo Groups as well as a collection of books for those interested in reading more on the subject.

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