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My husband's feet are gnarled, horny, hairy and callused, and he insists on wearing flip-flops in the summer. Is there any way I can get him to get them groomed before he goes out in public?

Manscaping is a tricky endeavour. We tend to resist it. For one thing, we tend to be proud of our hairy roughness and feel intuitively that to soften our parts is to appear to weaken.

Furthermore, we hate having our feet fussed over. A spa pedicure is (at least I find) an embarrassing thing: There you are in a bathrobe, up on a pedestal among a lot of women in bathrobes. They have towels around their heads and are reading celebrity magazines. (You have forgotten to bring a magazine.) They don't mind having a servant rub their feet; they are not as embarrassed by their feet as you are. The whole thing is just too intimate and you feel bad for the tiny friendly lady way down there who has to cut toenails all day.

I agree that the male foot, particularly as it ages, is not the most seductive body part. Toes tend to twist and curl with age, like the roots of ancient trees. I suggest that guys with particularly gruesome roots avoid their public display, and go with woven sandals or chic running shoes instead of flip-flops (and especially instead of the worst of all footwear, those ghastly Velcro rubber "sport" sandals, pride of barbecuing mall dads in SUVs everywhere). But can you force him to wear what you want? Sadly, no.

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