I'm happy to receive many e-mails. But please, please, please, read these FAQ first and write only if questions aren't answered there! Also don't send tremendous long attachments unless requested; it takes too long to download them. Pictures must absolutely be sent as JPG files and not as BMP or TIF files.
On this page I have collected frequently asked questions and added my answers. As a consequence, the contents are subjective.
The first thing you should do is to set yourself realistic objectives! Exaggerated expectations always end up in disappointment. It's of utmost importance that you don't push your partner or even exert mental pressure on her! In the beginning it's best if you intimate vaguely that you like small waists and that HER waist is quite small by nature (if that's true). Tell HER that tight-fitting clothes are fashionable nowadays. This may be the start for a discussion about how to emphasize the waist or how to set off HER figure to best advantage. At this point you could state that it is possible to stand out from the masses by enhancing the beauty of a special feature. Suggest that SHE could make HER waist even smaller than it is by nature. Maybe she then thinks of corsets - and refuses to wear any. Or you could mention that it's not a new thing to make one's waist smaller, as this was common during the Belle Epoque, for example. This is the point where most women reject the idea of a corset en bloc. If SHE doesn't you're lucky and one thing will lead to another.
But let's fancy that she says the corset would oppress women and it would cause damage to the health etc.. These are typical prejudices among people who don't know anything about corset-wearing. It's very important to do away with these. At first you could tell HER that it has nothing to do with oppression, for SHE is supposed to wear corsets of her own free will and voluntarily. Women in earlier times had no choice, but today they have an option! Now it's very important to make clear to HER what the advantages of a corset are. The texts of this website can help you with this. I recommend you to print out the corset adviser and to read it through together with HER or to let HER read it and talk about it afterwards. As an introduction for the text you should mention that it was written by me, a woman who laces herself. You could show HER photos (maybe some showing me) from the website. But in this context you should under no circumstances create a situation of competition, you should rather indicate realizable opportunities, i.e. by showing HER authentic photos. I'll give you some examples to make myself clear: it wouldn't help much if you said "...you are to be as small as the lady on the photo one day...". It sounds better to say "...look, how much more feminine she looks with a corset on ..." or something like that. It's absolutely necessary that you tell HER that corsets can (but need not necessarily) be worn every day (with almost every possible style of clothing), that they are not uncomfortable, harmful or inconvenient and that there are no handicaps from the corset if it's used appropriately. It seems proper and useful to me to compare corsets to high-heeled shoes.
Ideally SHE would now like to try out corsets herself. And for you this means moderation. I mean moderation concerning your objectives and moderation concerning the period of time in which you'd like to realize your objectives. If HER first corset isn't especially tight and if SHE can wear it and feels comfortable in it, it will be much easier for her to like it than if SHE felt not good while wearing it. In the above mentioned text I wrote that, after some time, it is easy to exchange the first corset for a smaller one. So you should get at first a corset that looks beautiful and that makes the waist smaller by approx. 5 cm. She should wear the corset only if she feels like it. Make compliments on HER figure and keep back your high expectations; and soon you can probably see that SHE likes wearing corsets. Do increase the tightness of HER waist in a way that SHE can tolerate and that SHE finds agreeable. This should be the only criterion determining HER waistline. I can serve as an example, for my waist is quite small and I find it agreeable; I feel good in my corset. But don't forget that I got used to that tightness over a long period of time - my body yielded so that the corset is not actually very tight. If necessary, SHE can contact me by e-mail (info@sylphide.de). I wish you much success in your efforts to convince HER!
I think that it is strange for a man to wear a corset. In my imagination a small waist doesn't fit well with a male body. It doesn't stress his natural shape, but makes him look unnatural in a way. I think that corsets are especially made for women, to stress the natural shape of the female body. This was probably the intention with which somebody invented this piece of underwear.
At the turn of the century the corset was very popular (and there was a minor revival in the 1950s), but since then it has become something like an outcast (I know that this expression applies only for persons, but I can't think of any other). I would like to revive it as an article of female underwear. The aim must therefore be to get the corset out of its shadowy existence and to make it a piece of clothing that is as widely accepted as any other, e.g. the bra.
The question is how to get there! First of all we have to ask ourselves: What are the reasons for the decrease of the corset? At the beginning it was certainly the liberation movement, in the course of which women wanted to get rid of all restriction. The ladies were striving for liberty, not only mentally, but also physically. This development led to the rather shapeless dresses of the 1920s and 1930s. During the 50s there was a short corset revival, but the liberation movement in the 60s soon put an end to it. Since that time corsets have been totally out of fashion.
So the corset has nearly disappeared for almost 90 years now. People who wanted to wear it in spite of the new fashion didn't dare to show it in public. Consequently it became an article for small groups of people. This was probably the reason why it survived, although its existence was rather modest. Yes, on the one hand I think that the corset's survival is due to those small groups of people who remained faithful and went on using it. On the other hand it's also due to them that efforts to re-establish the corset for common use do fail. I'd like to explain this in the following:
If a group of people is - in one or more aspects - excluded from the public, then this is probably owing to its members' behaviour which doesn't comply with generally accepted standards. In our case this means that the function of the corset was no longer only to form a small waist, there were other many functions attached to it, especially in the field of sexuality. This may have been the case in the last century, too, but not to such an extent as it is in our days. By the time other things were connected to corset-wearing, things that initially had nothing to do with it! What I'm talking about are high heels (in my opinion high heels are higher than 12cm ~ about 5 inches), latex and rubber clothing (there were nearly no corsets of rubber or latex a hundred years ago!), extremely long fingernails, body piercing or even mutilations, tattoos etc. ... These all are practices from sexually very liberal and permissive surroundings (in the following I'd like to call them 'unusual': this expression is meant to be merely descriptive and without any judgement). Another serious point is that these practices - unfortunately together with corset-wearing - are often performed in connection with prostitution. The public knows about this fact and for most people the 'unusual' practices are inseparably lumped together with corset-wearing. All these things contribute to the fact that corset-wearing has a negative image in our society.
I take it that corset-wearing was generally accepted and even desired a hundred years ago. It was even abnormal not to wear one. Women put on corsets mainly with the intention to become more beautiful; there were sexual reasons, too, but they weren't so important. At the period there was not the least connection between corsets and the 'unusual' practices. Every woman wore one. It was a common piece of clothing for both the housemaid and the lady which by no means was only worn by extravagant people. This was possible because the corset was generally accepted, as the bra is in our days. Today nobody would call a lady extravagant or deviant if she wore a bra. This is due to a quite functional view of the bra. It certainly has erotic components, but they are not the main reason why women wear bras. I think that it is not the bra itself, but rather a beautifully formed bust that has an erotic effect (which is 'normal' = generally accepted eroticism). It was the same thing with the corset. Not the corset itself, but rather its 'product' - the small waist - was looked at as erotic.
Therefore I have developed a theory: If the corset is to be re-established as a normal and functional piece of underwear, then its image has to be redefined. It must no longer be looked at as a fetishist and deviant article that is often connected to prostitution, but rather as a functional means to get a small waist, as it was common at the end of the last century.
In order to get there it is necessary to take away the negative image (which I explained above) from the corset. A lady who - for functional reasons - is interested in corseting, shall not at all have to be afraid of being associated with 'unusual' practices by public opinion. But unfortunately this is still the case today. I don't like the injustice of public opinion, but it does exist and we have to cope with it.
I'm sure that the majority of women would prefer not to wear a corset if she additionally had to wear high heels (of more than 12cm ~ 5 inches), had to have tattoos and piercings or exaggerated make-up.
I'd like to make clear another point: I'm not totally against any means besides the corset to promote femininity, but I'd like to reduce the use of these things to a generally acceptable level that can be performed by most women. An example: I often wear shoes with high heels, but the heels are not 15cm ~ 6-7 inches, but only 5-7cm ~ 2-3 inches high. This height is fully accepted in our society and it contributes to femininity. Concerning piercings I confine myself to earrings, as many thousands of women do. My fingernails have an average length, for I think that very long ones would hamper free movement. The same applies to make-up: in my opinion exaggerated make-up is not beautiful. One should confine oneself to an average level with these things to make the corset popular again, for it is not so much the corset itself, but the related attributes that prevent it from becoming a fashionable article again.
I do not want to prevent anybody from performing any 'unusual' practice. What I want to say is that all these things are not appropriate to make the corset popular, on the contrary, they have an adverse effect on the corset image. We can only hope that the reputation of the corset will improve as a consequence of the recent fashion shows. I confine myself to promoting the corset alone. I'm not against the performance of all the other things, but I'm against their connection to the corset.
It should be normal to wear a corset. The corset image should be quite similar to the bra image. I think that I as a corset-wearer can contribute to reach this aim by looking a bit girlish and 'innocent' and by signalling that I'm laced because a small waist is beautiful and dainty (Girl-next-door-look). In my opinion this strategy is the best because it allows other ladies to lace without to be connected with prostitution. For a woman who wants to become a corsetee it is much easier to identify with someone who looks like the girl from next door than with someone who looks like a vamp or a prostitute.
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