Boot worship

What is boot worship?

Boot worship is licking, kissing, polishing, or worshipping someone’s boots as a form of submission. It’s one of the few kinds of power play where nothing happens to the receiver’s body and the full ranking still shows.

What boot worship looks like in practice

The picture most people have with this term is someone on their hands and knees licking a boot. That happens, but it’s the far end of a range that’s a lot wider.

At the calm end there’s polishing. Someone sits on the floor with a cloth and works a pair of boots while the other keeps reading or talking. Nothing is said, nothing exciting happens, and that’s exactly the charge of it: one person is busy with the other’s things, and the other barely notices.

In the middle there’s touch. Holding the boot, resting your face against it, tying the laces. That’s physical and intimate without any skin on skin, and it’s the version people often try first.

At the intense end there’s licking and kissing, usually with an instruction attached: how long, where, and whether talking is allowed in between. This is where the humiliation surfaces most clearly, so this is where the conversation beforehand belongs.

Where it comes from

Boot worship isn’t new and isn’t small. The encyclopedia describes it as a common practice within the subculture of sadomasochists and related fetishists in the early twentieth century. There’s older documentation, including in the diaries of the nineteenth-century British maidservant Hannah Cullwick and in an 1868 novel, but as a fixed form within the scene it’s a twentieth-century phenomenon.

That it’s boots specifically has a reason the encyclopedia notes briefly. Within these circles boots are usually seen as an expression of dominance. Leather, latex, and PVC are the preferred materials. A boot makes someone taller and harder. Louder too, on a stone floor. And it stands on the ground, which means you have to go down for it.

It’s not a rare taste either. Scorolli and colleagues mapped 381 online discussion groups in International Journal of Impotence Research, good for an estimated five thousand participants at least. Preferences for body parts were the largest category at 33 percent, followed by objects associated with the body at 30 percent. Feet and the objects that go with them were the single most common subject within that.

Why people do boot worship

The appeal is in the clarity. There’s no posture where the ranking needs less explanation than the one where one person stands and the other is down near the floor.

• For the one receiving, the gain is in the simplicity. There’s one task, it’s clear, and as long as you’re busy with it you don’t have to work anything else out. Many people describe that as calm, not tension.
• For the one giving, it’s in the time. You don’t have to do anything. You stand there, and the other does the work. That’s a very different experience from actively dominating with impact play or rope.
• For a couple, it’s often the first form they try a power difference out with, precisely because there’s no pain involved and no one has to get undressed.

Because it looks so light, the conversation about it often gets skipped. But humiliation lands far more personally than a slap does. What one person finds funny touches something in another that has no joke in it.

Misconceptions about boot worship

“It’s about the boot.” Rarely. The boot is the starting point; the subject is the ranking. The same person usually feels nothing about a random boot on a random someone.

“It’s a gay thing.” The encyclopedia does describe a prominent group of mostly gay men who fetishize men’s boots, but boot worship shows up across the whole scene, in every makeup.

“It’s harmless, because nothing physical happens.” Little does happen to the body, true. But humiliation works on something else, and with that you can ruin an evening without a single red mark.

“Polishing is part of it.” Polishing is a craft of its own. Someone who cares for leather within the leather culture is called a bootblack, and that’s service, not automatically play.

What I see myself

Boot worship turns out calm more often than people expect. They come in with the idea that this is the most humiliating thing they can picture, and ten minutes later there’s someone lying contentedly on the floor who doesn’t really want to leave anymore.

The second thing I notice is how long it lasts. This is one of the few things that get better the longer they go on. Five minutes is a gesture. Half an hour is something else, and that difference is worth knowing before you start.

Beforehand I always ask whether talking is allowed, and if so, in what tone. For some people silence is the core and every word breaks it. For others that word is exactly why they do it. On a BDSM date, this is one of the calmest ways to start with a power difference.

What you can do yourself

• Agree on the tone, not just the act. Humiliating commentary and silent watching are two completely different scenes.
• Make sure the boot is clean. Street dirt is street dirt, and polish isn’t meant to end up in your mouth. A quick wipe with water beforehand solves both.
• Think about the knees. Kneeling on a hard floor for a long time is the most predictable complaint the next day. A cushion or a mat isn’t a luxury.
• Take your time with it. This works on duration, not intensity.
• Talk afterward. With humiliation the reaction more often comes an hour later than during. See also aftercare.

More reading on boot worship

On this site, the article on the power of crawling is about the posture this usually happens in and what it does to people. The types of humiliation women find arousing lays out the broader category, and discipline and positions covers the instruction part.

Beyond this site, the research by Scorolli and colleagues is the handiest starting point if you want to know how common this kind of preference really is.

Sources

• Boot fetishism. Wikipedia. Provides the finding that boot worship was a common practice among sadomasochists and related fetishists in the early twentieth century, the older documentation through Hannah Cullwick and an 1868 novel, the prominent group of gay men who fetishize men’s boots, and the finding that boots are usually seen as an expression of dominance, with leather, latex, and PVC as the preferred material.
• Relative prevalence of different fetishes. Scorolli, Ghirlanda, Enquist, Zattoni & Jannini, International Journal of Impotence Research 19(4), 432–437, 2007. 381 discussion groups with an estimated five thousand participants at least; body parts 33 percent, objects connected to the body 30 percent, with feet and the associated objects as the most common subject.
• Leather subculture. Wikipedia. Provides the distinction between bootblacking as a service to the community and the care of the gear, and the role bootblacks play within that.

Related terms

• BDSM. The broader framework in which power exchange without pain is a full-fledged form.
• Aftercare. With humiliation often more important than with pain, because the reaction comes later.
• Fetish. The umbrella concept, and where the line with a diagnosis lies.
• Trampling. What happens when that same boot isn’t worshipped but set on you.
• Humiliation. The broader concept the kneeling in boot worship falls under, including where the word comes from.
• Foot worship. The same submission on the bare foot, where the receiver does feel what’s happening.
• Worship. The word this act sits under, with the numbers and the etymology.
• Leather. The material itself, and what it means in this community.