Femininity Read Online Free PDF Page B

supporting stays, and without them she feared she might collapse into a degenerative
     heap, both physically and spiritually. Her erect, formal posture was identified with
     moral rectitude and social propriety (the term “straitlaced” owes its origin to thecorset), and loosening the stays or leaving the house without them was interpreted
     as a sign of loose, licentious behavior. Training the body to accept the corset was
     a discipline that began in childhood, for it was never too early for an anxious mother
     to correct the slovenly posture with which her daughter was born. Initiation into
     the mysteries of the hooks and laces was a rite of passage into the mysteries and
     responsibilities of becoming a young lady; the confines of the corset signified the
     submissive, self-conscious values of the feminine sphere.
    Art historian Anne Hollander observes in Seeing Through Clothes that much of the world’s great painting celebrates the nude female body not in its
     natural configurations but in conformance to the dress and corset styles of the period,
     with pushed-up breasts or widely separated breasts, with a high waist or a low waist,
     with a rounded or a flat abdomen, etcetera. Apparently the corset could shape not
     only the woman but the artist’s erotic preference. Corset fetishism in the history
     of pornography is astonishing and shows no sign of phasing out in today’s freer, more
     natural age. A comical, dated interest in girdles, brassieres and crisscross of garters
     (I have yet to see a pornographic picture of a woman in pantyhose) seems to say that
     a network of feminine impediments is a more potent sexual tonic for many men than
     the direct reality of an unencumbered body.
    Of course, women’s underwear is imbued with erotic value at least partially because
     it lies close to the forbidden female mysteries. In the step-by-step procedure of
     the old-fashioned seduction the formidable girdle must be breached, the brassiere
     unhooked, the soft flesh released and the moral inhibitions overcome by the determined
     lover. Given this standard scenario based on the double standard, decorative lingerie
     with its contradictory message of harness, display and frivolous trim takes on a sexual
     life of its own. During the Gay Nineties a frilly lace garter thrown from the stage
     by a music-hall performer was a titillating gesture of naughty, provocative promise.
     In our own day there seems to be popular agreement that black lace is charged with
     sexual current, since it bespeaks narcissism that is wickedly assertive although the
     wearer herself may remain conventionally passive. Black lace has been certified as
     sexy for somany generations that for some women it represents the ultimate in feminine lingerie
     while others believe it is vulgar and cheap. On the reverse side of the picture, white
     cotton underpants have a feminine reputation for chastity and refinement in some quarters
     and are too plain, dowdy and childish for the taste of others.
    I campaigned hard for my first brassiere, for my mother was of the opinion that I
     didn’t really need one. Need one? The need was in my head, not in my bosom. Half the
     girls in my class were proudly showing off their bra lines under their Sloppy Joe
     sweaters—how could I look sophisticated and get a boy with nothing to show but the
     scoop of a kiddy undershirt? Despite my mother’s unsettling reassurance that all too
     soon I would fill out and begin to resemble her side of the family, the only enlarging
     I did was from 34-A to 34-A padded. This was rotten luck in an era where the boys
     said they could always tell a C-cup from a D-cup, and Howard Hughes publicized The Outlaw by revealing how he applied his engineering technology to design a special uplift
     for Jane Russell. Watching Jane Russell on television last year doing brassiere commercials
     for the full-figured woman, I had to admit that Mother was right. I didn’t really
     need one. By