My name is Paul and I seem always to have had a fascination with women's underwear, especially girdles, corsetry, bras, stockings, suspenders and so on.
As an 18-year old teenager, in 1969, the family went on holiday to the Norfolk Broads. On the way back, a detour was made to the Spirella factory at Letchworth, Hertfordshire. There were many women, men and children in the tour and I was fascinated to see the layout and the "museum" at the end of the visit. Many years later, at the age of about 45, I visited the closed factory and saw the "museum" again, which was very evocative. Only in recent years did I obtain a Spirella corset for myself, bought from eBay, and rather a speculation in size and fit. In fact the waist is fine but the hips are far too big. After all, men and women are quite different shapes.
I have in my collection two Camp fan-laced corsets. They can be made to fit very well because of the infinitely variable lacing. And the fact that my figure had modified over the decades to be rather more shapely than a typical man. I like very much the height and overall length of these corsets.
Everything I ever did as a young adult with women's underwear was secretive, even furtive and shameful. On one occasion, aged about 19 years I suppose, I stayed with an auntie (actually mum's cousin), a very glamorous lady, who never married after her fiancΓ© was killed at Dunkirk. I always slept in her spare room, where her wardrobes and drawers were. I used to rifle through the drawers and soon discovered her corsetry.
Then I discovered in a drawer a swimming costume with a built-in corset. Because it was made of stretchy material and boned, it held me better than any item of her actual underwear had done. Doing up the zips was the most exciting thing in my life to that point. In those days my physical reaction was instant, and it happened then within a few seconds. There was a moment of panic when I had difficulty unzipping it, but it worked eventually and I carried the memory of the feeling for months afterwards. I can feel it now, to be honest, pressing on my waist and around my bottom.
Then, of course, one day it happened. I was staying with that auntie and she had gone out shopping. I dashed to her underwear drawer and took out a long white zippered girdle, with six suspenders. I found some black stockings also. Within a few minutes, I had pulled the girdle up my torso and managed to fasten the hooks and then the zipper. I bent and contorted to fasten the stockings and eventually was clad in the most complete underwear I have even seen.
I walked into her room, to look at myself in her long mirror. This was quite a long walk, at the far end of the upstairs landing; at the back of the house, when the spare room was at the front. I was delighted with the result although, to be honest, the girdle was not very tight on me and was a little loose around my bottom and hips. But the waist felt good and tight, and that was enough for me, for those moments. I began to walk back to the spare room, along the landing, and guess what: auntie opened the front door, stepped in and looked up at me at the top of the stairs, dressed in her corsetry.
Sheepishly, I dashed to my room and got undressed; placed the girdle and stockings back into their drawer, and got into my own clothes. I was in a mental turmoil how to manage the next few minutes, when auntie would want an explanation and probably get very angry. It wasn't like that at all.
I came out of my room and she was waiting.
"Paul, you silly boy; that girdle isn't right for you. Come in here and I'll find something that will hold you better."