I can’t get my right foot wholly wet because I don’t want it’s computer-y parts to malfunction. But I can get the prosthetic footshell and nylons a bit soggy, as I’m doing here. Chasing the waves and enjoying the cold sand between my toes.
When I load photos of my fake foot to flickr (even one as innocuous as this one), I get hundreds of views. There’s a large community of amputee fetishists (called devotees) who are fascinated by such pics. Sometimes I am wary of the attention that such photos garner. Sometimes I just don’t care. Sometimes I am curious about the people who are so interested in me simply because of my missing limb. I suspect that some of my regular readers on this blog may be devotees and I’m okay with that. If you are interested in the whole me (and not just the missing bits) then that seems far less disconcerting than those who simply compile links to images of amputees.
While I don’t completely understand the fascination that devotees have with amputee women, I can recognize that I have my own odd proclivities. Some folks are just more interesting or attractive to me for whatever reason–it’s a personal aesthetic that seems beyond explanation.
But a part of me still feels a bit uncomfortable with the fact that a photo of my feet is of more interest than one of my face.
