With lingerie, sexuality is turned upside down

SEX ACCORDING TO MAÏA

First garment put on, last removed: from briefs to thongs, panties, underpants, corsets or bras, underwear protects, hides and conceals our private parts. In other words, interference with sexuality is inevitable. Some underwear is also made just for that: we slip into them, fantasizing about the lover who will get rid of them a few hours later.

Let’s start with the most obvious point: lingerie has welcome narcissistic virtues (especially for those whose complexes are awakened by the approach of summer). We gladly wear it for ourselves, out of pure selfishness, to reclaim our body before discovering that of another person.

This moment of self-contemplation is all the more important as feeling desirable (sometimes) conditions access to one’s own sensuality. In 2021, the FIFG thus taught us that 47% of women who consider themselves ugly are sexually dissatisfied, but only 27% of women who consider themselves pretty, and 20% of those who consider themselves very pretty.

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Beyond feeling good about yourself, lingerie allows you to enter into another skin than your own – and perhaps a fantasy skin. There is in certain accessories a part of disguise, even of masquerade: the leather corset does not refer to the same imagination as the rustling garter, just as the jockstraps (these briefs for men without fabric on the buttocks) have nothing to do with grandpa’s striped underpants. The right underwear embarks us on a role-play where we are no longer responsible for our fantasies, since we are no longer really ourselves (how convenient). We then allow ourselves words, even practices, that the “real me” would not authorize.

“Cheat” effect

Of course, lingerie is also used to seduce the other; 29% of men find that a woman is at her peak of sex appeal when she undresses (FIFG, 2016). This expectation is reflected in the changing rooms of 10% to 15% of French women, who wear accessories for their lovers that have been stored away in the closet in everyday life: corsets, corsets, stockings, couture stockings, even garter belts.

Why so much erotic power? Perhaps because hidden-unveiled games are at the source of Western eroticism – between laces, laces, ribbons, buttons, zippers and games of transparency, aficionados will be served.

But perhaps also for the performative side of lingerie: to show that we desire the other, we rip off their underwear. It’s not very smart (nor very eco-responsible), but it’s part of the codes of love.

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