16. How To Persuade A Woman To Wear A Girdle
Since I began posting on ACL, and especially since my materials first appeared on the Web site in December, I have received a fairly large amount of e-mail. This e-mail has been very interesting for me to read, though I haven't had time to respond to it all. Both men and women have written to me and the main theme of this correspondence has been gratitude for writing about the pleasure and beauty of garments and styles that have not received their fair share of celebration.
I have received a fair number of letters from men and women who have been lucky enough to be able share the kind of relationship my husband and I have: she likes to wear girdles and corsets, he likes her in them, the mutual interest increases the passionate intensity of a relationship. There have been a few letters from women who like wearing them but whose husbands are indifferent. I have received a great many letters from men who find girdles attractive but who sense that their wives are indifferent or hostile to them. Many of these wives actually wear girdles from time to time, for practical reasons.
These men invariably ask if I have any ideas about how they might persuade a woman to wear a girdle. I hesitate to answer such a question, since it is perfectly possible that any advice I give could backfire. Without knowing the people involved, it is almost impossible to give such advice. Still, I would like to contribute the following random thoughts on the matter in the hope that they might be helpful to people in this situation. Having now received several letters from members of couples in which the woman tried wearing a girdle after reading or after her husband or boyfriend had read my articles, I think that it is possible to successfully introduce the girdle as an item of erotic attraction, even in cases in which the woman has expressed outright hostility to them. Such an undertaking takes skill, sensitivity, and courage. Here are some thoughts and suggestions:
1) Obviously, what a man should do in a situation like this depends upon his relationship with his woman, her attitudes towards clothing and sexuality, etc. The only thing I can say in general is what I've said before in many posts: any time a man approaches a woman with a request to satisfy a deep desire, he must do so with a maximum of respect and sensitivity for her feelings and a minimum of pressure, or anger, if she resists. He must also make it clear that he thinks it is very important to reciprocate in some way. Don't plead, whine, sulk, or demand. Don't surprise her or put her on the spot. Accept refusal with kindness and sensitivity. Not only is it the right thing to do, it may work to your long-term advantage.
2) If you have a relationship in which you frequently talk about what turns the two of you on and if you both often try new things to turn each other on, then you probably wouldn't have a problem with this issue. Most people, however, don't have such a relationship. One way to get a woman to consider wearing a girdle for you is to try to establish such a relationship. Try to overcome the common shyness about talking about such matters. Gently raise the issue of what you can each do to turn the other on. Do it in an appropriate context, like during a romantic dinner or moment, or a particularly pleasant, playful, or loving conversation. Stress your desire to do what you can to satisfy her more (which you want to do anyway, right?). Don't necessarily raise girdles, or anything very deep, right away. See how things are going. Once you are both clearly comfortable about talking about this, and are actually doing things to please each other, then, judge the moment.
3) It is clear from the evidence of sales figures and the expansion of department store space devoted to shapewear that many more women are wearing these things, but are not talking much about it. Someone on the newsgroup mentioned this, saying that he encountered several women in the '80's who would wear girdles on occasion, but weren't happy with acknowledging it.
This is a very common feeling. Many women feel that girdles are an admission that they are heavier or older than they want to be. It doesn't even occur to them that many men might find girdles sexy on a woman. This has, after all, virtually never been acknowledged in the media and most men who are attracted to women in girdles are, I think, embarassed to admit it, because it seems unusual, and because girdles are often thought of as comic and unsexy. Well, if your woman should happen to wear a girdle, or even some quite moderate form of shapewear, gently seize the opportunity to make it clear to her that you find her very, very attractive in such a garment. Most women in such a situation, I think, will be surprised, relieved, and intrigued. You might even want to act surprised by your own attraction. That will make your response seem more spontaneous, less as if you were lying in wait for an opportunity to ask her to wear a girdle. Take it from there.
As I've said before, if you want to give a woman a girdle as a gift, the best thing to do might be to first establish a tradition or pattern of romantic gift-giving. Give her little gifts of things like flowers, jewelry, lipstick, perfume, stockings, slips, tributes to her femininity, expressions of your love. If you've established your credentials as a romantic gift giver, then if you did give her a girdle and gently asked her to wear it from time to time, the gift will be received in the context established by these other gifts. It will seem romantic to her and will get her to consider the possibility in ways she might not have before. If you give such a gift, make it clear that you aren't putting any pressure on her, that you can certainly take it back if she doesn't want it, but you, well, (blush and tremble if you want at this point, men hate to do this, but women find it really sweet and sexy) have always found these things to be sexy, and if well, she wouldn't mind.... If she rejects the present, you can act embarassed, but don't act angry or resentful. She may change her mind, but she is less likely to if you get mad at her.
5) A lot of women don't like the idea of girdles because they seem to be associated with pre-feminist, unliberated ideas about women. Make it clear that you don't subscribe to these ideas. Make it clear that you appreciate her being a modern, self-confident, independent woman, even if you'd like her to wear a girdle every once in a while to please you. Don't give her some kind of reactionary line about how in the old days women were women and men were men and that's the way it should be. Very few women nowadays will respond to that. Yet a great many women would be afraid to wear a girdle for fear that it would seem unliberated. It's partly up to you to help ease her fears about this by not re-inforcing them.
6) Remember that the important thing is to convince the woman that she is attracting you and being beautiful at the same time. Most women, I think, are afraid of fetishism, and rightly so. They are afraid that a man might be interested in them or only attracted to them because they are wearing a fetish object. A woman who loves you deeply might very well wear braces on her teeth if you tell her that it turns you on enormously and you became fixated on them when you were a child. But she's not likely to enjoy the situation.
What you have to do is to be careful to be discreet about the fetish aspect of your attraction. She's not going to want to think that she's playing the role of some woman whose girdle you saw on a windy day in 1967 either. Make it clear, discreetly, that you find her beautiful in this genuinely classy garment that for you always signified a certain elegant femininity. She's likely to respond to that sort of thing. She'll feel stylish in a way you have defined but she can relate to. In relation to this, I suspect a great many women might be willing to wear a girdle to attract their man, but might not be willing to talk about it, because that would bring into prominence his attraction to the "thing," and not to her. I realize of course that you are attracted to her and not the "thing," but if you are attracted to her in the "thing," you might want to be careful to not make her too self-conscious about it.
7) One excuse or technique that you might use for buying her a girdle is this: buy her a complete outfit for an occasion, from her dress to her hose. Tell her that you read somewhere that this was a romantic thing for a husband to do. You might tell her that the woman who advised you at the store suggested this shaper with the dress and you, well, went along with her suggestion because you've always thought that these things were kind of elegant, in a way. Or you might propose a romantic weekend or vacation for which you would each buy each other the underwear or even clothes that might be worn. She can come up with whatever she wants to come up with for you and you could pick out a nice robe, a bra and panty set, maybe a garter belt, an attractive girdle here, some hose there, you get the idea. These ideas, or others like them, would take the focus off of the "please wear a girdle, it turns me on" aspect. Remember, the vast majority of women like a man to be romantic every once in a while.
Anyway, these are a few of my ideas. I would really love to hear from anyone who tries them or who has tried something like them.
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Copyright 1995 by Suzanne. Used with permission of the author.
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Originally Posted April 20, 1997