5.
Girdles And Masochism
Fashion Illustration,
April, 1965 Mademoiselle
I have actually done quite a bit of, often embarrassed, thinking about why I actually enjoy tight girdling and corseting. Although the main physical appeal of wearing a girdle is that sleek, firm sensuous feeling that is in many ways analogous to the tactile sensations of wearing a silky slip, negligee, or stockings, that sense of the pleasant "touch" of a garment, there is actually something more to it, if I honestly get a certain pleasure from tightness and from reasonable and not excessive "girdle suffering."
As I see it, there are several different distinct but interacting sensations here. First of all, I d othink, from my personal and costuming experience, that a woman's waist, abdomen, hips, derriere, and thighs are all neglected erogenous zones. Different women respond differently to stimulation of these areas, but I think that the stimulation women receive from stimulation and constriction of these areas is general enough to explain why they not only tolerated but chose to wear corsets and girdles for so long.
Although I think that the male domination and suppression of women has taken many forms in the course of history, I do not believe that the wearing of girdles and corsets can be entirely explained as an imposition of males upon females. As I remember the portion of the golden age of girdles that I experienced first hand, we wore girdles primarily to please our own, more refined and sophisticated, sense of beauty and decorum (and secretly, because it gave some erotic pleasure, just as a slip or nylons or heels did). Although some men, like my husband, developed an erotic attraction to them because of the enormous profusion of advertising images of girdled women, and because they were a frequently and openly discussed (largely, I think, because they were not viewed as an erotic garment) signifier of adult femininity, I think most men and boys would have been happier to see our derrieres bouncing back and forth, and to encounter no such formidable obstacle when, in the back seat of the Chevy, they put their hands up our skirts. I remember so clearly how much I, my mother, my sisters, and my girlfriends enjoyed the sense of dressed-up and elegant femininity associated with girdles, that I can't help but think that the sense of pleasurable arousal I experience when I wear them is actually quite common.
So, to put it in the most direct possible terms, I find that an important part of the appeal of wearing a girdle is the sense of being perpetually stimulated. The stimulation is more subtle than, say, a direct stimulation of the genitals would be, but it is a mild, endurable, teasing excitement nonetheless. And it would stand to reason that the tighter the girdle, the more intense the subtle stimulation.
Another aspect of the pleasure of girdle-wearing and of tight-girdling, has to do with our "reading" of the stimulating experience. We read girdles as signifiers of our femininity. Since this mysterious experience of "femininity," this powerful sense of our difference from males, is central to our sexuality, everything that makes us feel feminine stimulates us. Wearing a girdle that is so tight that it doesn't let us forget that we have it on perpetually reminds us of our femininity. We can't escape it. We feel it every time we sit down, walk, or make any movement. The girdle is always there, reminding us of our femininity and enforcing and inspiring feminine comportment. This is, after all, the fundamental reason why all serious costumers and costume books are adamant about the need to put actresses in girdles for plays set between 1930 and 1968, in spite of the expense and extra work involved in fixing up the actresses with a garment that won't after all be seen. No woman can create a convincing visual impression of the femininity of this period unless she is wearing a girdle.
So, when we wear our girdles, we are being stimulated in a tactile way, and in an imaginative way ("feeling feminine"). They work together, I feel, to make us more erotically involved and erotically attractive to our men. Apart from the fact that he conceived an early attraction to women in girdles, my husband is stimulated by my acting feminine, different from him I'd assume. This is fundamental to the dynamic of girdle-flirting in our marriage. He is turned on by this defining reminder of our difference.
Okay, finally the most difficult and complex aspect of the attraction of wearing a girdle, especially a tight girdle. I am not 100% comfortable about talking about this, but I am very grateful to you for directly raising the issue, since I think that if we are going to construct a serious analysis of what it means to wear a girdle, we have to confront the "masochism" issue.
Exquisite Form
ad, 1969
I want to say several things first. I know exactly, exactly what you mean by the "after-the-girdle" feeling. When I take my girdle off, I still sometimes feel the feminine effects of the constriction I accepted for the course of the day, and I feel that constriction, in a powerful way, because I have just been liberated from it. This powerfully intensifies my romantic relations with my husband. I suppose I must admit that I do enjoy the freely chosen constriction and, at times discomfort of a girdle. I enjoy it because of the way in which it intensifies my awareness of my femininity.
I think of myself at such moments as proudly and even deliciously submitting to the constraints of womanhood. I will not submit to any social or intellectual constraint and will fight with every fiber of my being against them. But there is something down there, in that dark mystery of femininity that enjoys a freely chosen constraint and submission, symbolically and temporarily, to the greater strength, mobility, and freedom of the male. As I've said to you, I love the wonderfully exciting gender play he and I enjoy with each other.
And all wrapped up with this, in some unexplainable way, is the exciting sense that I choose to accept the constriction of femininity, symbolized by the wonderful contained experience of being always girdled and corseted. And when I am really tightly girdled, or have to endure a marathon like my 38 hour stint, or like your 24-hour plus stints sitting beside your man on a long drive (you see a contemporary woman would never wear a girdle for a long ride in a car, good for you), the feeling of constraint allows so much romantic energy to build up that I'm like an unbound tigress when I'm freed. Now it's not pain that does this to me. When a girdle or corset is too painful, the pain takes my mind off of my excitement, and can ruin the experience. Pain is part of life, undoubtedly, but I get no pleasure from pain itself. ... I don't like pain, but I guess that something profoundly feminine in me enjoys signifying restriction.
Continue to When And Why Girdles Were Compulsory
Copyright 1995 by Suzanne. Used with permission of the author.
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Originally Posted April 20, 1997