Can anything else explain why the garments pinch and insult the average woman\u2019s physique so mercilessly? They choke, suffocate, and bind those corners of a woman\u2019s body that yearn to be free the most. Surely, no man on earth is worth this much suffering and discomfort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Debra Smouse, an author, entrepreneur, and life coach, says that\u2019s exactly the attitude that causes many in the new feminist movement to miss the point. For her, wearing erotic lingerie is about loving yourself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhoever said buying sexy lingerie is for turning men on had it all backward,\u201d Smouse writes in an essay for Your Tango<\/em>. \u201cWearing beautiful lingerie isn’t about guys, ladies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In many ways, the confusion derives from the perplexing abundance of meanings that we\u2019ve come to associate with female sexual imagery. Stripped of their symbolism, sexy lingerie items are simply clothes like any other: objects that help to separate the body from the elements. Yet, of course, they are so much more than that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With their plummeting necklines and sumptuous chiffon fabrics, they make bold assertions about feminine beauty, feminism, power, and sex – and how those ideas often oppose each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Depending on who wears them, erotic lingerie can either exalt women for what they are or mock them for what they are not. Women who wear them choose their meaning day by day, week by week, from one special date to the next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Clearly, Smouse \u2013 who says she usually wears jeans, black t-shirts, make-up, and jewelry at home \u2013 is a feminist who exalts with feminine flair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On her website<\/a>, the self-professed \u201cTarnished Southern Belle\u201d offers an online syllabus that includes a course on helping women unleash what she calls their \u201cinner sex kittens.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI know it isn’t as soothing as those t-shirt bras, but there\u2019s something magical about a lacy bra that makes you feel feminine and sexy,\u201d Smourse says. \u201cWhen you feel feminine, you tap into that magnetic feminine power of yours\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Smouse\u2019s gloriously exuberant appreciation for erotic underwear is nothing like the passivity of women who are uninformed or oblivious to the feminist cause.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Ohio-based author is well-aware that the activist\u2019s quarrel against erotic lingerie is less about discomfort than it is about society\u2019s conflicted relationship with the female form.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Over the years, men have abused a sexually-charged feminine ideal to sell cigarettes, beer, real estate, automobiles, watches, diet programs, pornography, guns, cheese, sneakers, and toaster ovens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They have employed it to wash dishes, make money, establish business connections, launder clothes, raise children, and make their beds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Enough is enough, armies of rightly-outraged feminists have been shouting for decades and decades now. Women are none of those things anymore \u2013 at least, not without a fierce fight. Somewhere in the fog of protest, somehow, the love of prettiness came to be regarded as an embarrassing – even corrupt – response to feminist objectives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Smouse\u2019s counter-argument is coherent and even more spectacularly feminist. That is, a woman should be able to enjoy an ideal image of herself without regarding it as a false picture of who she is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe goal, after all, is to impress yourself,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen a woman wears lovely undies on a daily basis, she always feels beautiful and confident.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Smouse\u2019s view, the militant argument against erotic lingerie is therefore one that pits real-world cynicism against our shared understanding of beauty. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Some hard-boiled feminists would even have you believe that ideal feminine beauty does not actually exist. What we have come to think of as feminine beauty is a mirage conjured by ad campaigns and hundreds of years of exploitative misogyny. <\/p>\n\n\n\n That is, of course, demonstrably untrue. In fact, that is the gaping error around their argument. <\/p>\n\n\n\n You can no more deny the universal compulsion to look at a pretty face than you can refute our common aversion for the smell of rotten fish. What\u2019s beautiful is beautiful and no amount of righteous protestation can change that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"Not](\"https:\/\/espressoblues.comm\/stories\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2021\/01\/FEMINIST-0.jpg\")
What Does Erotic Lingerie Represent?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"Stripped](\"https:\/\/espressoblues.comm\/stories\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2021\/01\/FEMINIST-3.jpg\")
\u201cImpress Yourself\u201d<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"Every](\"https:\/\/espressoblues.comm\/stories\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2021\/01\/FEMINIST-2.jpg\")
<\/a>What Every Woman Deserves<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"What\u2019s](\"https:\/\/espressoblues.comm\/stories\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2021\/01\/feminist-lingerie.jpg\")