Hunks in Heels

On October 16, James Fox-Smith will "walk a mile in her shoes."

by

Back in the early nineties, before my wife and I were married, we spent quite a while living out of backpacks. For the first couple of years we knew one another we roamed around Europe, searching out interesting places, meeting weird and wonderful people, and generally enjoying the sort of total open-ended freedom that becomes hard to find once you begin adulthood in earnest. We rode motorbikes around Greek islands and slept in ruined English monasteries, visited Nazi death camps, got lost in Polish snowstorms, and propositioned in Czech train stations. And like all free-spirited backpackers not equipped with trust-fund financing, we joined the European seasonal work circuit to support our escapades.

At any given time there is, shuttling between the winter and summer resort destinations of western Europe, a highly mobile, minimally discerning, reasonably well-educated workforce of English, Australian, South African, Canadian, Dutch, Danish and, occasionally, American twenty-somethings willing to arrest their forward motion to earn a few Euros waiting tables or washing dishes or scrubbing floors or performing other mundane tasks restaurants and hoteliers need people to do during high season. The work was neither glamorous nor well-paid, but it was easy to find, usually came with room and board, and, if you were careful, enabled you to save enough to bankroll a couple of months’ onward journey before needing to find a similar post in another resort town somewhere down the road.

This is how we ended up spending one winter in Westendorf, a small ski town in the Tyrol valley high in the Austrian Alps. Arriving in December, we had managed to find seasonal jobs at a fairly nice hotel, waiting on the English and Dutch ski tourists who made up the majority of the guests. The job wasn’t bad, especially when considered against some others we’d done (shucking corn, washing dishes); or against the jobs that some others had done. (We got to know a South African named Ron who would take the train up to Munich when he ran out of money to volunteer for pharmaceutical experiments. When he came back after one of them his skin was bright orange and stayed that way for a week.) Anyway, our job was to serve breakfast and dinner to the package tour guests. In return we were given a reasonable stipend, a couple of basic meals, and a tiny room in the attic to live in. And we had our days free to ski. So for the most part we passed that winter pretty well, with some exceptions.

Austria’s Tyrol Valley is predominantly Roman Catholic, so when Mardi Gras rolled around that February the locals got involved with an enthusiasm that would make Louisiana proud. Known in Bavaria and Austria as Fasching, the Tyroleans’ carnival traditions call for dressing up as a member of the opposite sex and consuming immodest amounts of birnenschnaps—a paralyzingly alcoholic white brandy made from pears. This is how I ended up going to work on Faschingsamstag—the Saturday prior to Mardi Gras day—dressed as a Tyrolean milk maid complete with a blue gingham off-the-shoulder dress, apron, pigtails, and a cowbell. Now, if you were, say, Wolfgang, the swarthy, mustachioed, salt-of-the-earth Tyrolean lad who worked as a porter at the hotel, you could go around dressed up as a woman without fear of confusion. My problem was that, being somewhat slight of build and having long hair at the time, when I dressed up like a woman, I was simply mistaken for a woman. So it came to pass that late on Faschingsamstag I had the singularly horrifying experience of being pushed into an alcove and briefly assaulted by a large, drunken, and (it goes without saying) rather short-sighted Dutch tourist. When the extent of his misunderstanding became clear to my attacker, he was almost as appalled as I was. In all seriousness, though, the experience was terrifying and has been more than enough to keep me away from birnenschnaps and women’s clothing ever since.

I relate this tale to establish my credentials for being involved in Hunks In Heels, the Sexual Trauma Awareness & Response (STAR) organization’s catwalk show and fundraiser, taking place in Baton Rouge this October 16. As a participant I will be donning a pair of high heels (size 12), whimsically decorated by Elevator Projects artist Raina Wirta, and strutting them down a catwalk at the Shaw Center. I will be joined by fourteen prominent male Baton Rouge business, sports, and political figures. Most will have better legs than me, but what we all share is a deep interest in focusing attention on the problem of sexual violence and oppression in our community as well as funding the STAR organization’s efforts to support, educate, and advocate for those who have suffered it. Drawing attention to an insidious and persistent injustice is important work, and I implore you to support it. To contribute to my campaign, please visit crowdrise.com/HunksinHeels2014 to make a donation. Then come out on October 16 and cheer my fellow hunks and me on as we walk a mile in the shoes of the women, children, and—yes—men, who have suffered sexual trauma. God knows it’s worth a few hours’ sore feet.