Naked: Oh, Hell No

Lingerie--the weird kind with the cut-outs and the ruffles and the straps and ties and sheer patches and latches and the laces and all the fluffy insanity--is designed to make you look like an uncomfortable @#$%, I've decided. Almost no one looks sexy in this kind of lingerie, in real life, no matter how sexy they really are.

Lingerie in general is supposed to make you feel sexy because you're dressing up, you're highlighting the gorgeousest parts of your body, you're looking undressed and ready for anything, right? This specific kind of lingerie is designed to show everything off, which is what is supposed to make us feel sexy. Except what's sexy about feeling like the parts we dislike about ourselves are so exposed? What's sexy about being fidgety, wanting to cover everything up, tugging at the strings up our butts and the straps under our boobs, worrying that we look less seductive and more slightly retarded? We are dressing ourselves up as a gift to our lovers, and we are afraid they will not like it and want to return it for store credit.

This kind of lingerie has the magic ability to make us feel like we have to apologize for our bodies, to apologize for not looking like the ladies in the catalog, to feel a little ridiculous, to leave us hoping to god our sweetheart is going to play along with the ridiculousness. Who came up with this crap? And the idea that we're supposed to truss ourselves up for special occasions? Why does this stuff even exist? And why does it make me simultaneously so sad because it is so lame, and so mad, too?

I like corsets, I am down with sexy panties, and chemises can be both lovely and alluring. But the weird strappy things--they feel like they're meant to punish a woman's body, and make her feel like crap about whatever flaws she thinks she has, and they are just oh my god so stupid. And that's probably what makes me the maddest. Do they think we're stupid, too?

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