With a Foreword by Virginian
"Are there other women out there who wear girdles and like them as I do?"
On March 29, 1995, these words, posted to the Usenet group alt.clothing.lingerie, began a revolution that changed my life, and the lives of many other men and women.
"I wear a lot of vintage clothing from the '40's and '50's and with these clothes, I wear girdles, as women did back then," wrote a woman who signed herself "Suzanne."
She continued,
"I find them to be very elegant in a retro way, as well as comfortable, in spite of their reputation. They also certainly make me look good in the clothes, or in anything clingy for that matter.
"I keep reading articles about how women, particularly baby-boomers like myself, are wearing girdles again, that they're back in style as part of the whole glamour revival. I'm wondering if this is true and I'm too inhibited to ask women I know about it.
"Are there other women out there who wear girdles and like them as I do? Are they actually coming back into style? Have others tried them, either the traditional kind or the new designer girdles by people like Natori and Mizrahi? Is their image changing?
"I'd be curious to know what others think."
This post had effects that reached well beyond an obscure Usenet discussion group.
I gained access to the Internet in 1993, and eventually found my way to the discussion group, alt.clothing.lingerie. In those days, the forum was a civilized and delightful meeting place for men and women to talk about a fascinating subject. There was only one problem: hardly anyone seemed interested in girdles. Though the term popped up once in a while, the overall impression of apathy seemed to confirm a conclusion I'd sadly reached decades before: my interest in girdles was pretty weird.
At least I no longer felt that I was the only girdle nut around. Two or three others had shown up briefly, posting comments that scattered before a breeze of indifference. I even began an enjoyable correspondence with one of these other girdle guys, but our discussions were always clouded by a mutual sense that we were afflicted by a very bizarre perversion, and a despair that any woman would find our interest anything but "barely tolerable."
Suzanne's post changed everything.
Word spread quickly about this remarkable woman who enjoyed wearing a girdle. With the ice broken, other women chimed in with similar sentiments. In a few weeks, alt.clothing.lingerie became an on-line meeting place for men fascinated by girdles and women who did not mind admitting they liked the garments, too.
A few months later, I posted my essay, The Girl in the Pale Blue Girdle, which in turn served as the nucleus of the first edition of Zona. Had it not been for Suzanne's pioneering work, I would never have dreamed of writing the essay or establishing this web site.
Readers often ask me for information about Suzanne. In truth, I know very little about her. We corresponded regularly for several years, but she maintained strict boundaries, revealing virtually nothing in the way of personal information. Eventually, she grew weary of the attention that inevitably focused on her, and she withdrew completely from on-line activities. I have not heard from her since 1998, and I doubt I will ever again.
That does not matter; it is her work that matters. In her brief period of activity, Suzanne sparked a revolution in the way girdles are perceived, and brought a lot of men and women to an understanding that their interests are not so strange, after all.
Thank you, Suzanne. I hope your life goes well.
-Virginian
Suzanne's Introduction
What follows is a collection of excerpts from posts I have posted on alt.clothing.lingerie. Collectively, they add up to a sort of autobiographical essay about the romance and glamour of girdles, an unfairly maligned garment that, for me, will always be associated with the elegance of an earlier period. Some of the posts were excerpts from letters I had written to a friend who shares my enthusiasm. I hope people find these posts interesting and/or useful. It was fun to write them.
-Suzanne
1. The Appeal of Girdles For Some Women
3. Why Girdles Became Unfashionable
4. Girdles And The Decline And Revival Of Romance
6. When And Why Girdles Were Compulsory
8. How Can Anyone Tell If You're Wearing A Girdle?
10. Why I Wear A Girdle Every Day
16. How To Persuade A Woman To Wear A Girdle
17. Ten Principles Of Girdle Flirting
Copyright 1995 by Suzanne. Used with permission of the author.
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Originally Posted April 20, 1997