Picture the scene: you’ve been invited to a friend’s home for coffee or cocktails or dinner. You’ve dressed for the occasion. A couple of minutes after the agreed time (because it’s a little sad to be _exactly _on time), you press the doorbell. What happens next? Do you stride into their home without another care, or pause at the threshold to remove your shoes? More pertinently, as the host, are you within your rights to stop your guests at the door and ask that they take them off? It’s a question that has prompted stringent debate even within the MR PORTER Team: both sides seem to view the other as somehow overstepping the bounds of polite company.

With that in mind, we asked two of our own editors to thrash it out and put forward their best cases. Read on – oh, but actually, do you mind taking those off before you start?

Fun fact: according to microbiologists at the University of Arizona, there is an average of 421,000 units of bacteria on the sole of a single shoe. That includes highly contagious diseases and “structures” (their phrasing) that can cause maladies not limited to intestinal infections, urinary tract infections, lung conditions, pneumonia and meningitis. And 90 per cent transfers onto a clean floor on first contact.

Another recent survey found that 98 per cent of bacteria on a bathroom floor was tracked in from outside (toilet spray accounts for the other two per cent). While a 2017 study by the University of Houston revealed that 26 per cent of shoes examined tested positive for C. diff, a charming bacteria that can result in a potentially lethal “super diarrhoea”. So, sure, feel free to wear your outside shoes inside your own home. Fill your boots. But don’t even think about bringing them into mine.

Not a fact, but a widely accepted idiom: a man’s home is his castle. As in, whatever he chooses to do in it is his own business and no one has the right to tell him otherwise. That could mean installing a moat and a portcullis, assuming he has planning permission, but it definitely applies to not wearing outside shoes inside. If I were to visit someone’s house and they insisted that I kept my shoes on – it has happened – then I would respect that person’s wishes. It is their home, after all. But as soon as I get back to my inner sanctum, the shoes come off and the slippers go on.

Slippers! At the risk of sounding incredibly middle-aged, I’d interject here that slippers can be quite stylish and are in fact right now enjoying something of “a moment”. True, you won’t see plush, cosy footwarmers of the type your grandad wears out and about per se – they are, by definition, housebound. But you’ll note the slipper’s DNA in the mules and slip-ons currently parading up and down red carpets across the land. (Simply buy yourself two pairs and leave one at the door.)

And you know who else agrees with me? The Japanese. An entire nation of the most stylish people on the planet. There, every detail of every outfit is considered and no shoes in the house is the default position, as it should be. So much so that it is customary to provide slippers for guests. No one is made to feel awkward and no one has to ask anyone to remove their shoes, because it is expected.

With that in mind, we’ll take this argument inside. I’d invite my fellow debater in beaters into my house, but offer appropriate alternative footwear. Slippers that really click with what their wearing. And hope that they’d leave their beef outside, alongside their honking shoes. Because the entitlement that comes with telling someone else how to live their life – in their own home, no less – is not a good look.

There’s a degree of informality – slovenliness, even – that makes people feel more relaxed. It is why Chateau Marmont is more fun than Nobu; a little permissiveness goes a long way. By the same token, while it might be backed by science, forcing guests to remove their shoes goes against the fundamental spirit of entertaining. It sends the message that you care more about preventing scuffs than your guests’ comfort.

What’s more, it’s immediately and irreparably infantilising: padding around in socks changes the way you stand, the way you sit and, if you ask me, the quality of people’s conversation. We all try harder when we’re wearing shoes. It’s why people don’t go barefoot in the office (except for yoga teachers).

Besides, unless you’ve been given fair warning, it’s highly unfair to ruin somebody’s (hopefully) thoughtfully considered outfit by forcing them to remove their shoes. Footwear can alter the entire look of what you’re wearing: it affects how your trousers fall and whether your silhouette appears proportional. Take them out of the equation and a formerly soigne suit suddenly looks like it belongs to the mayor of Munchkintown.

And that’s before you’ve considered what lies beneath: I’ve seen more than one holey sock, shoe liner or unclipped toenail furtively poking through the otherwise chic ensemble of a guest who evidently didn’t know they’d be going shoeless.

Yes, someone could bring germs in on their shoes. But if you live in a city, most people are bringing in germs anyway: once you’ve Googled what lives on subway handles or Uber car seats, you’ll never be able to forget it. And don’t even get me started on your towels and sponges. The fact is, we’re already swimming in each other’s muck. Unless you’re planning to lick the floor (no judgement), most experts have agreed that dirty shoes should occupy a fairly low place on the scale of day-to-day contamination concerns.

Being a good host is a responsibility. It means putting aside your own neuroses in service of creating a good vibe. Got kids? Send them to bed. Got fancy floors? Buy a doormat. And if your guests’ shoes are so filthy that they’ll be leaving a trail of grime behind them with every step? Never mind the dress code: it might be time to look for some new friends.