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As I was researching this subject for Fetish-School, I realized that the corset is the most complex item in the entire fetishist/BDSM scene. It has such a long and well documented life that I could write for pages about the political/historical intricacies of corsets. However, I’ll try to stick to the essential and squeeze the most of what I’ve learned.
The actual real origins of corset making are pretty much impossible to know, but traces of corset-like garments can be seen as early as ancient Greece. Pretty much as far as we can look back in civilization, women have been adorning items that try to accentuate natural curves and emphasize breasts and hips, because, well…it looks good.
However, corsets only started being widely worn late renaissance until the 20th century, when women’s emancipation allowed them to shed the before indispensable item of clothing, although many would now call it item of torture.
Coming first from Italy, it seems they were mainly used to maintain a straight posture and to help fit clothes better. Doctors also constructed some in metal, to help some back problems. Progressively, it came to be what we now know of the corset, a boned piece of material that helps reduce one’s waistline.
Even though they got abandoned somewhere along the way, it seems that I see them more and more. Even blouses are made with lacing that recalls the corset. I guess it’s not hard to understand: corset is probably the most sexual of all item of clothing in all history. It is so intricately embedded in the human psyche as being sex, be it because a woman who wears them wants to look better to seduce or because they emphasize the bosom or any other of a gazillion reasons.
I can say for the record that it is definitely my favourite item of all fetish wear. It can represent a person with a will of steel, the straightness of the back identifying her resolve. It shows the power of a highly sexual creature that knows her ascendant on others around and is willing to use that power at the crack of the whip or the subtle movement of her finger.
But it can also be the restraint of the slave, the boundaries of her condition that shows how she is docile
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Origins of a Corset
