“Is that the new thing now?” I get asked. And I realize it really is. Corset wear has been making a slow comeback over the last two decades, and I get a feeling looking over my past year in a corset that we haven’t seen the peak yet. In the age of strong nylons engineered to be shape wear, we have come full circle. The steel armor that was once abandoned for being too stuffy is now being realized as the most effective body enhancement that doesn’t involve a surgeon.
What started out as a novelty for me turned into a venture that would mold my body and change my feelings about corsets in the present. I spent nine months in a corset. Nine months full of research and experience, different styles of corset and experience with other long-run tightlacers following their own trends in this age of congruous fashions.
Waist training is an effective way to permanently reshape the body. Similar to the way spa body wraps work, semi-regular wear of a corset will compress fat cells from being round to being oval shaped, which can reduce you permanently without the corset on by an inch in very little time, even as little as a few months. The more a corset is worn, it will begin to redefine musculature in the abdomen, and it is from this that a regular lacer loses about an inch yearly. After years of compressing fat tissue and muscle, a dedicated person will eventually reshape the soft lower ribs, which are made of cartilage.
Weighing exactly the same in my nine months of wear, I have lost an inch and a half. Unbelievably, a corset has done what a lifetime of exercise could not do: change my shape. My hips are no longer squared off with a small tire that was forming around me like a halo of fat. Instead, it is all smooth lines. With the corset off I’m no longer the reduced 5 inches that I’ve achieved, but my body retains a shadow of the pieces I wear. Little dedication was required for me to gain benefit from a corset. The first inch I lost disappeared while only wearing the corset a few times a week for three months. While increasing back support and toning new muscles deep in the core over time, a corset instantly reduces anyone four inches, even those that have never worn one before.
But is it practical?
In my daily wear tightlacing it was surprising to me how practical a corset really can be. Where full corsets are more restricting of upper body movement, an underbust is simple and quick to lace by oneself, and allows for bending down and turning the torso. The busk (front closure) and laces sit flat, and are unnoticeable even under thinner shirts. Although I love the look of an underbust over clothing, because it shows off the figure better and is a great accessory to most outfits. Corsets can look extremely modern and fresh, contrary to the depiction they have as historical costume wear or vinyl fetishist garb. Think Alexander McQueen’s fairytale nymphs from his last runway show. As far as comfort goes, I think the most pain associated with a corset is the pain people imagine there is when they first see an intense reduction. Most experienced lacers adjust throughout the day whenever there is discomfort. If a corset is fitted correctly, there is room to expand the piece on the body as well as contract it. As the body naturally swells and subsides in its own rhythm, the corset can be made to adjust to it. It is reasonable to let it out once a day for a few hours, then tighten it again when it feels loose.
Maybe it’s the movies with women struggling to grip a bedpost, while the maids wrestle the strings, while the heroin gasps for air against the device. People look at me shocked and suspiciously when I tell them I lace into my corsets alone, with no assistance. But true corset strings slide easily through their eyelets. One pull upwards tightens the bottom, one pull downwards tightens the top of the corset. Sometimes it is necessary to pick the laces where they cross up the corset to get a better fit, but even this added to the process never takes longer than a few minutes.
Is it safe?
This is the hottest topic with corset lacing. Through the ages the woman who tightlaced was considered evil, prone to drug addiction, and full of contempt for motherhood. They had “perverted” and undergarment that was believed to help women be more moral when worn not too tightly. They were accused of gratifying masochistic desires, and of carrying disease. Many women who died of syphilis and consumption were ruled as victims of corset wear. Other ailments were attributed to wear of a corset including cancer, reynauds syndrome, and epilepsy. Even ailments that do not exist were deemed as the evil of wearing a corset too tightly: 18th century literature speculates that a woman could have her breasts spew pus and that a tight corset would retain all of her menstrual blood until a bursting point which would put her in a state of labor. Others suggested that lack of blood flow to the brain from a corset made women inferior. Ethel Granger, the world record holder for smallest waist, measuring at her tiniest thirteen inches lived into her late eighties. Many tests were done on her health throughout her lifetime. Her organs, while shifted down into her hips, all functioned healthily. No abnormalities were found. The only alarming thing that occurred from her radical size was the discomfort she had when the corset was off. She did not like to be without it for long, as her muscles had adapted to being held up by a corset constantly. Most tightlacers, even those in the community that have an 8” reduction or more, can still comfortably move without a corset. Many corset train for a long while and reduce quite far, and then take a break for a season. This is a healthier, modern approach that allows for muscle definition without the corset on to stay strong.
Benefits of wearing a corset are actually apparent- back support for those on their feet all day and posture correction, preventing slouching and hunching of the shoulders.
There is no experience that can quite compare to the sensation of wearing a corset in daily life. After the arguments of its practicality, its safety, its attractiveness, there is the actual happening. There is the way clothes fit, the way each outfit is totally new on the body. You walk a little taller, yes because your spine is being held straight under the pressure of fourteen rods of steel, but also because there is some pleasure in the close embrace around the small of your waist. I expected the stares when I walked down the street. I even expected the great shape that emerged out of the bars of the corset over time as my awkward angles melted away. What I didn’t expect was the erotic thrill of it that never really wanes, day after day. The energy that flows in an hourglass shape is intoxicating. Maybe it is the new center of gravity, or the tightened muscles in the lower abdomen. It is tangible by the wearer and often those who catch a glance at the hips graduating into an impossibly small waist. A liberating feeling, a feeling of mastery over self, over sexuality. Over a hot debate in a 19th century news article, one woman adhered her peers to stick to the corset:
“Stick to your stays ladies, and triumph over the other sex.” –Lydia Becker
And I am more convinced than I ever thought I’d be.
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