For those of us who came of age during the golden age of girdles, the garments were of passionate interest for two quite different reasons. First of all, girdle advertisements were everywhere and the illustrations and text provided a highly stimulating form of erotic arousal to a pubescent boy in those pre-centerfold days.
I can well recall my delight, at the age of thirteen or fourteen, when a new copy of Vogue or Harper's Bazaar appeared on the coffee table and I would smuggle it to my room for long hours of pleasure as I looked at the beautiful, smiling models showing their lovely figures molded by intimate garments.
The issues for September and October always had the most and the largest ads, many with full page displays. I memorized the names of the various brands ... Warners, Vassarette, Bien Jolie, Flexees, Gossard, Formfit, Tru-Balance, Lily of France, Hickory, Poirette and, of course, Playtex ... and eagerly read how each gave the wearer "that special feeling." I would fantasize being in the same room with a girdle model in her hose and high heels as she let me run my hands over the fabric and press my aroused body against the shimmering panels. Once I lost control with a new issue of Vogue and my mother couldn't understand why the pages were stuck together.
The advertisements were not just in fashion magazines, of course. The Sunday newspaper's magazine section was always filled with beautiful girdles and corsets and a rainy Sunday afternoon could be spent prolonging the final passionate rush as long as possible.
(The popularity of Zona's Image Gallery is evidence that the appeal of these ads is widespread and that my experience is probably typical.)
Growing out of my solitary pleasure with girdle ads, I began to notice the figures of real girls and women and to take an interest in their girdle-wearing habits. I knew, of course, that my mother wore a girdle all of the time but I had never seen her without a dress or robe and I was afraid to peek into her girdle drawer.
When my mother's bridge club was in session at our house, I could see that all the women were well-girdled for this social occasion. Occasionally I would detect the ridge of a seam or the bump of a garter, or one of the ladies would cross her legs a bit carelessly and I would glimpse the top of gartered hose or the cuff of a long-legged panty girdle. I found this almost as arousing as my precious girdle ads.
Once I overheard one of mother's bridge friends whisper that she "just had to get out of her girdle" and she proceeded to the bathroom across from my bedroom. When she came out a few minutes later, she said to me that she had hung "her things" in the bathroom and "hoped that they wouldn't be in my way." Of course, I went in to look and, to my delight, there was a six-garter, open bottom, zipper girdle and the hose she had been wearing. I looked at the label and saw that it was Gossard, one of my favorite brands. I fondled the garment for a few minutes, feeling its elastic and rubbing the panels, flicking the dangling garters. For an instant I thought I might put it on, but decided that the risk was too great. However, thoroughly aroused, I went back to my room, opened a well-thumbed copy of Harpers Bazaar to a similar girdle and completed my pleasure.
(It would be another twenty years before I actually fulfilled that boyhood urge to put on a girdle, but that's another story.)
I began to go to school and club dances when I was sixteen and had my first thrill of feeling a girdled waist while waltzing with a schoolmate. Sometimes while dancing as close as our chaperones would permit I could feel a bit more of my partner's girdle and I would try to visualize the entire garment in my mind.
But, now, we come to the painful (and humorous) part of my memoir. At age sixteen, I couldn't wait to apply for a driver's license. I didn't have a car, of course, but there was always the possibility for the family car to be made available to a boy whose grades and behavior merited it. And that meant that a date with a girl might be arranged away from the eyes of parents or chaperones. I began to dream that some sort of "real sex" might substitute for my solitary girdle delights.
The process was slow, with many false starts which need not bore us here, but I gradually became aware that all "nice girls" wore a panty girdle on dates. Not just any panty girdle would do, of course; it had to be a long or medium-legged girdle with no open access to the intimate regions. The split or fold-over crotch, so familiar today, was unknown then, as far as I can recall, and only a few panty girdles had a hook-and-eye or snap-shut crotch. It became clear that no mother who valued her daughter's virtue would buy a garment that had such an invitation to hanky-panky. I can well recall an evening when sufficient progress in intimacy had been made to discover what appeared to be a snap-open crotch ... only to be told, with giggling embarrassment, that her mother had "sewed it shut."
To remove and replace a panty girdle in even the most comfortable sedan was almost impossible and no young lady could risk entering her home at midnight with her girdle in her purse. By the same token, no well- brought-up young man would suggest that removal of a girdle in the movie theatre's restroom might make for a more pleasant late night chat. In truth, most of the girls were willing accomplices in this girdle conspiracy; to blame a girdle for sexual restraint was always easier than clinging to traditional morality.
Not that all this fumbling about was unenjoyable, by any means. With my pubescent passion for girdles, to be allowed to move my hands under the skirt and slip and caress the fabric that I had so long admired in print was close to heaven. I would slide my fingers over the various textures of elastic, satin, cotton, rayon, nylon.... feeling every seam and ridge... and ultimately be allowed to press a finger against the firm protection over the clitoral area ...pressure which I was assured was pleasing. Girdle petting became a part of my weekend life.
During these gropings, my erection was occasionally released from its shorts and allowed to rub against hose and even girdles. After pressing myself against dry magazine pages, the act of pushing against an actual girdle was sublime. After a few accidents, I learned to wear a condom during these forays. When no climax occurred, I would return home after a date and search my magazine and catalogue collection to identify the garment that she had been wearing. Then, looking at the advertisement, I would achieve what I had been kept from on the date ... complete satisfaction.
When I was eighteen, I found the ultimate in girdle frustration or, perhaps, satisfaction... readers will have to decide which. Her name was (for these purposes, and I hope she is on-line) Erma, and she was a passionate, plump blonde. She was eager for our amorous encounters in the front seat of the famous Buick Roadmaster, but she was equally committed to the inviolability of her girdle. We kissed, we stroked, she welcomed my hands against the fabric of her girdle, she moaned pleasurably as I pressed my fingers against the firm crotch material. But the girdle must stay on and in place.
After some weeks of this teenage passion, we found our final form of safe, girdle-approved sex. I would sit on the car seat with my condom-covered organ at the ready. She, with the long-legged panty girdle and hose in place, would lift her skirt and straddle my legs while facing me. While I caressed her girdled bottom she would guide my organ to the correct spot on the fabric of the girdle and we would push against each other in rapture.
You may laugh but you will also have to admit that this was about the safest sex ever invented. The curious thing is that I still remember with delight every moment of those girdle-protected encounters. Erma claimed then that it was the best sex she had ever had and I hope she will see this and give a final opinion.
Of course, the time I had prayed for finally arrived; when a girl would wear an open-bottomed girdle on a date. It was a formal college dance and I quickly realized that her high-rise girdle came within an inch of her bra and a few rounds of the dance floor made it clear that the girdle had a skirted hem. Shall we cut short the suspense by revealing the secret? Of course! Beneath her girdle was a Playtex brief, once more frustrating my ardor or, possibly, once again contributing to my life-long fascination with these erotic garments.
Return to Mens' Dreams
Page designed and maintained by 
Posted September 1, 1997