Boots! An introduction to boot worship and bootblacking
What bootblacking can teach us about care, legacy and sustainability via an interview with Astrid, the UK BootBlack 2024.
The surge of interest in fetish, kink and BDSM always tends to look past one crucial detail: that when we truly engage with these subcultures, we challenge our ideas of what ‘sex’ looks like. Sometimes sex doesn’t involve an exchange of bodily fluids, or taking our clothes off – just as we’ve gradually accepted that not all sex is cis-hetero P-in-V.
Why am I bringing this up? Well, because today’s newsletter is about bootblacking (and a little bit of boot worship).
I first learned about the erotic charge of boot play from a dear ex whose BDSM origin story involved a girlfriend getting down her knees to tie her boot shoelaces for her. From there, the sexual synapses started firing, leading her to explore more about dominance and boot play. (During and after being with this person, I’ve experimented with licking a few boots, but it’s never been a major part of play for me).
So, that’s all to say that I’m going to provide a little caveat here: I’m not personally a bootblack or boot fetishist. I have informed the following piece with research but it’s more of a rudimentary intro to the subculture, followed by a musing on what we can learn from it. If you’re looking for something more definitive, I finish the newsletter off with an interview from someone who is a part of the subculture and who can therefore speak to its significance and traditions better than I can.
So, to bootblacking. To the uninitiated, bootblacking might look a lot like shoe-shining: you know, when businessmen sit on a chair and pay someone to polish up their loafers. However, as much as shoe-shiners might take pride in their work, bootblacking is powered by serious passion. You might see bootblacking stations in BDSM spaces, but it doesn’t always involve conventional sex. There’s a large element of care – either to a person, or a pair of boots. There’s something really pure about the exchange: as adults, we don’t really get to be looked after so often.
Bootblacks often identify as part of leather culture (which is commonly considered to have developed from gay male post-war culture and its intersection with biker culture – though there are broader historical readings and it is generally more diverse today) so their care is extended to the leather items they are presented with. Part of the subculture is about demonstrating your skills and knowledge and imparting that to others by word of mouth – maintaining a tradition and legacy. There are also competitions to demonstrate your skills, with winners being crowned.
There are so many things that are intriguing about bootblacking. The thing which interests me most is what this can teach us about how we relate to what we wear. The focus on craft and process, on learning the history of a piece of footwear, teaches us to not view boots as simply disposable pieces of material. Rather, it encourages us to think about how they bond to the skin, how they act as an intermediary between our body and the outside world, and makes us think about the little impressions we leave on boots (scuffs) and the little impressions they leave on us (blisters).
When we develop a more engaged interest in our boots (but also our clothes, our technology, our homeware) we can begin to break the consumerist cycle. We don’t see them as things to be worn out and then thrown away – we think of them as extensions of ourselves, as something which deserves love and TLC. We might want to restore them or repair them – or seek out a bootblack who help us – rather than ditch them for a younger model.
Erotic subcultures don’t just teach us about sexuality – or the limits of our cultural definitions of sex – they teach us about how we relate to the world.
As promised: I spoke to (WhatsApped) a bootblack expert. Meet Astrid, who holds the title of UK Bootblack 2024 and runs the leathercare, repair, and restoration service Bvtch Boots.
When did you get into bootblacking?
One of my exes taught me how to bootblack, just as her ex taught her how to bootblack. After practicing on my own boots and those of the people I lived with for six months, I decided to advertise it as a service in January of 2023.
The rest is history, really; I learned more by meeting new bootblacks and exchanging techniques, watching YouTube videos and reading blog posts, and getting as much experience as I could working with different kinds of boots through take-home projects, private sessions, and running my stand at events.
How would you describe your bootblacking style?
I'd describe my bootblacking style as holistic. It really depends on who I have in my chair. Sometimes, the experience will be akin to a hairdresser's appointment, with small talk and chatter while I work away. Other times it can be quite therapeutic, both because of the massage-adjacent aspect of a lot of the work I perform, and because we can get into some deeper conversation. Of course, there are also sessions where it's explicitly erotic and my working on the boots becomes a form of sex in and of itself. It's a very flexible craft!
Why is bootblack culture important to you?
I think bootblack culture for me has been an instrumental part in my ability to enter leather culture. Before I was a bootblack, I found leather very intimidating to become involved with as the kind of person that I am [a butch, dyke, trans woman]. Possessing the ability and the skill to care for the gear that leatherfolk revere so much makes me feel more like I have a right to inhabit these spaces, even if I already had that right and couldn't see it. So it's been important to me in that sense.
I think in a broader way, bootblack culture is a culture of care and repair. It's an appreciation and an ability to preserve things that are important to us, to make things we use every day and which we have sentimental attachments to last as long as we possibly can. And not just to care for our own possessions, but the possessions of others, and that itself feels like a form of mutual interpersonal care.
To be a bootblack is to be of service to a community, to look after those around you. It's also a role of preservation in a historical sense; I learn so much about the boots I work on and the people who own them, and I further that by learning as much as I can about the history of leatherfolk who came before me, and try to do my part to record and catalogue and preserve that too. It all feels like part of the same practice.
I think the highest form of boot worship is that which preserves and cares for the boot. You can lick and caress to your heart's content, but how far does your reverence go if you're not maintaining their longevity and appearance?
In your experience and individual practice, how does bootblacking intersect with boot worship dynamics?
I think bootblacking and boot worship intertwine quite naturally. It's interesting, though, because one doesn't necessarily lead into the other. I know a lot of dom-top bootblacks, and I wonder whether you could describe what they perform as boot worship. Likewise, I know that when I have my own boots blacked, it has the potential to put me in a state of genuine vulnerability. But then, is there even mutual exclusivity there? There's a lot to consider.
As far as my own practice goes, though, boots are one of my greatest obsessions, and I think the highest form of boot worship is that which preserves and cares for the boot. You can lick and caress to your heart's content, but how far does your reverence go if you're not maintaining their longevity and appearance? That's not meant to belittle those who love boot worship and aren't familiar with bootblacking techniques.
Rather, I think boot worshippers should find their potential lack of experience as an exciting opportunity to explore, and to take their devotion to even further heights. There are even certain techniques that blend the two practices together; Huberd's, a popular greasy conditioner for oil-tanned boots that don't typically take a shine, is body-safe. This naturally leads to many using it as lube for sex, but it also means there's a relative amount of safety in applying some to your tongue and licking it onto the boots you're servicing.
What was it like to become UK Bootblack 2024?
Honestly, being awarded the title of UK Bootblack 2024 still hasn't quite sunk in for me. I still haven't cried yet, which surprises me, so I suspect something small and insignificant will happen that sets me off. It's a huge honour, and a tremendous responsibility. I'm a butch, dyke, trans woman and I'm not sure how many of us are titleholders. I'm very acutely aware that I might provide representation for a lot of people, and I don't want to take that lightly.
There's so much that I aim to do with my title year, but if I achieve nothing else, I at least hope that other dykes who see me winning something like this feel greater confidence to get involved in the leather scene. It's a community that has done so much for me, and given my life so much joy and purpose.
Boots!
Some loosely defined terms, to jot down for future reference:
Bootblacking is the practice of caring for leather boots: cleaning them, shining them, restoring them.
Boot fetishism is a fetish focussed on boots, individuals may have a preference for specific types of boots or specific materials for boots. As featured in Thérèse Raquin, for my French lit fans.
Boot worship is often linked to power play dynamics and may feature a sub smelling, kissing or licking a pair of boots. A dom may also torture a sub with a pair of boots, for example by stomping on the sub in a pair of high-heeled boots (where the internet’s refrain of “step on me” comes from).