Fetish by Valerie Steele

Author:Valerie Steele
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 1996-01-27T16:00:00+00:00

Times Square billboard, 1982 . (Andy Levin)

Black Stockings and Pointed Bras

A list of men’s sexually oriented periodicals at the Kinsey Institute included Black Garter, Black Lace, Black Satin, Black Silk Stockings, Black Stockings, Lingerie Libertines, Nifty Nylons, Nylon Jungle, Rouge, Sable, Satan and Lace (that’s satan, not satin ; a magazine for transvestites and transsexuals is called Satin and Lace), Silk, Silk Stockings, Silky, Silky Sirens, Skirt, Slip and Gaiter, Stocking Parade, Velvet, and Velvet Touch . Not all were fetish magazines {Velvet was more like Penthouse), but many shared a focus on themes that appeal especially strongly to fetishists.

Many of the titles sound quaint because garters, although long associated with sex, have essentially disappeared (except for weddings), while stockings have largely been replaced by the more impenetrable barrier of pantyhose. An article in the men’s magazine the Nylon Jungle raised the issue of the threatened demise of a long-standing fetish object. Garters had long since vanished, the author argued, but they had been replaced by garter belts, whose straps “tracing their taut resolute line over the thigh contours, have proved to be every bit as popular with male beauty-lovers as frilly leg bands were.” But were garter belts and stockings now to be replaced by pantyhose? The magazine insisted defensively that “sales of pantyhose have been disappointing, except among under-21s and the ‘with-it’ college crowd. The average American woman, where she is permitted a freedom of choice, seems to prefer the garter belt... and refuses to be talked into expensive fads.”45 By 1967, however, this was patently untrue.

The modern girl had “a problem,” insisted another writer: She was trapped in “lingerie limbo... torn between her love for all the wonderfully delicate bits of feminine wear and the new go-go mod styles that have a male influence.” Her girlfriends were constantly trying to talk her into “going mod all the way... but she balked at the heavy hose and other wooly type garments imported from England.” The only good aspect of mod fashion were the white go-go boots, “which go so well with her nylons.”46

This is another interesting example of the fetishist tendency to prefer old-fashioned garments. It could be argued that fetishists simply “imprint” on the clothing of their mothers’ generation. Indeed, it has been playfully suggested that future fetishists are even now becoming obsessed with Reeboks.47 But this is too simplistic. Certain garments (like high-heeled shoes, stockings, and garter belts) have particular characteristics that lend themselves to being fetishized.

The legs are the pathway to the genitals. Stockings lead the viewer’s eyes up the legs, while garter belts frame the genitals. For many men, the effect is like arrows pointing to the promised land, an effect accentuated when the stockings have seams up the back. “Hot Legs—The ups and downs of the stocking and garter industry fully exposed!”48 But the tops of stockings trace a line across the thighs, just as a gunslinger draws a line in the sand to indicate: Go no farther! Black stockings, in particular, graphically isolate part of the leg, and stop a few inches below the genitals.

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