Why lingerie?

[TarnishedPenny]

OK, I’ve written a fair bit of stuff highlighting the way lingerie appeals to men and am happy with the way they were received. Note that I’m not referring to the more extreme BDSM garb, but more those things which can also be v utilitarian - brassieres, panties, garter belts, stockings, bustiers, etc.

Yes of course, some bras (for instance) are more appealing than others. That’s more a matter of degree, I think, but it’s almost a given, I gather, that given a choice between a woman absolutely bare or the same woman wearing something slinky, for most men it’ll be Door No. 2 almost every time.

What I don’t really understand is the Why of it. I’m not judging and vive la difference, but why are a few scraps of silk or satin such a universal turn-on?

Yes, men are Visual creatures, factory setting, so to speak. That doesn’t explain the fascination of g-strings, negligées and such. Why isn’t nude tops?

Is it that women wearing such feel sexier and that mood carries over? Mystery? Gift-wrapping? Is it that, by donning such, women are openly acknowledging their sexuality?

Opinions and discussion would be welcomed.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Don't know why, but those little scraps of cloth, the difference between nearly naked and nearly nude, sets up a huge frisson of arousal for me.

There's nearly always a watched dressing or a slow undressing in my stories - I think it must be that slow revelation, that finally hidden mystery, but it's always worked for me, that last hidden something.

 

[lovecraft68]

I guess its just more fun to see a pretty package and get to unwrap it, rather than "bang, here it all is" even revealing lingerie leaves some things to the imagination.

In a similar vein I've always found it interesting the way porn can desensitize you and make you kind of go in reverse in your tastes. What I mean is back when I was a kid and porn was finding some skin mags or the days of VHS the initial reaction was "holy shit, she's naked!"

Over time I found videos or pictures where the woman is in lingerie more appealing for the reason I said right off the bat. Going further I developed a taste for videos where the women are mostly dressed. Skirt up around the hips, blouse on but open, tits out of the bra...dressed but accessible is how I once described it in a story.

There is also the CFNM kink-which I tie to having a submissive streak-where the woman is completely dressed and watching those scenes can be as exciting as if she were nude or partially nude.

It all works, but depends on the person, the mood, the scene...
Example...a dub con type story, the woman being completely naked for humiliation purposes works, but of the woman wants to seduce, then lingerie would be a more fitting choice.

I think the expression its all good works here, but you're question is answered in your post, men are more visual so the lingerie with all the bells and whistles mostly works. There is also the fact that lingerie can make a woman feel sexy as well. There's something exciting in buying something sexy and waiting to see the look on your lover's face when they see you in it.

 

[gordo12]

Yes of course, some bras (for instance) are more appealing than others. That’s more a matter of degree, I think, but it’s almost a given, I gather, that given a choice between a woman absolutely bare or the same woman wearing something slinky, for most men it’ll be Door No. 2 almost every time.

What I don’t really understand is the Why of it. I’m not judging and vive la difference, but why are a few scraps of silk or satin such a universal turn-on?

It's definitely the physical aspect of it, men are far more visual than emotional. The mystery of what lies underneath and the FUN of unwrapping it. Then there are those hopeful moments wondering if it'll let itself be unwrapped. Those all appeal to me more than a nude woman plopping herself in my lap.

And Twitter is definitely giving me an education in lingerie these days. 6-15 E-girl followers a week all eager to show me their fanciest goods.

Whoever said the mind has a capacity for endless creation certainly had the lingerie industry in mind!

 

[gordo12]

I also wonder if it's the way men get introduced to sex. The women are responsible for guarding the gates and the men responsible for breaching them. During our teen years, it starts with little seductions, removing a piece of clothing or getting buttons opened while pretending nothing was happening. The building thrill of closing in on heaven. It wasn't always successful, but lord did it make me randy!

It kind of sets the scene for future expectations in our minds and lingerie fits right in with that!

 

[MillieDynamite]

Jo and I watched the first three episodes of season two, Only Murders in the Building, last night. When Alice Banks (Cara Delevingne) showed up, we both said, "LESIBAN, Oh, goody." sure enough, soon she and Mabel Mora (Selena Gomez) were playing kissy face and getting us ready for a real sex scene. Girls in hot nighties, stockings, and garter belts making out on a bed, and leading to more, so much more. But not in the first three episodes. We live in hope!

 

[MrPixel]

Heh. Week before last I wrote a chapter where one of the FMCs (of 8) is raking the MMC over the coals about his fetish where he does not like lingerie, that he strongly prefers his ladies to be nude and depilitated. Also, he has an anti-fetish about high heels. This is in a context where this particular F character is a former prostitute who worked in a sex club, and before they acknowledged their loving relationship he would pay her to shed the teaser lingerie "uniform" and shoes before serving him and his guests.

My feeling about it is obviously similar, though I like the teasing aspect not so much of filmy and transparent/translucent - negligees, for instance - but of peek-a-boo covering and uncovering of the fun bits, such as with very short skirts. I do tend to think that a lot of lingerie is intended to distract from or hide perceived imperfections, hence the "feeling sexy" aspect.

 

[SimonDoom]

It's not the end result, it's the process. Nudity is great, but it's even better and more exciting when it starts with coverage. Sexy lingerie implies the process of taking it off.

Plus, people just like pretty adornment. Why do people like jewelry? Why wear bracelets, earrings, necklaces? They look good. They dress things up.

 

[yowser]

I hypothesize that some of it has to do with the combination of the notion of skin-contact and imagination. Besides the brain, what's the most erogenous organ but skin?

Thinking about what is next to skin, and then about the removal of the covering, revealing what is underneath, the imagination goes into overdrive - all of this can be immensely arousing on many levels. Cleavage, often more enticing than simple bareness, gives a hint of what might be underneath, provoking interest. I think also of John Donne's poem 'The flea' which works on the intimacy of skin shared at a granular level.

As a counter-point to all this, the lingerie thing does very little for me personally. But a braless look, with the hint of what is moving around underneath a blouse or other covering, tight or loose, maybe with nipples making their presence clear through the fabric? Devastating. My will evaporates.

 

[gordo12]

One of the best writers on Lit. I loved this story when she (Blin18) posted it.

The Lingerie Tester

 

[ChloeTzang]

At its foundation, it's a basic reproductive strategy, similar to that which you find in many other species, where the males and females display themselves to attract and hold a suitable partner. Female ducks for example, tend to be very drab, whereas the drakes have those gorgeous feathers. Obviously, there's all sorts of variations to this, but at its core it's a reproductive strategy than in most species is more instinctive behavior and genetically based (sex-based plumage for example). Humans being more intelligent than ducks (in most cases, but not all), the roots of our behavior are deep in our past, millions of years of evolution are behind them, and you have to understand that and accept that. Some of the overlaying behavioral patterns are learned behavior, while others are rooted in our genetics. Men are more prone to violence - that's their genetic role, and birth rates if not artificially influenced result in more males than females, to allow for excessive deaths of young males. THAT is really basic and there's so many books, studies and debates over this that really, you just have to look at it from about 500,000 feet and go, well, whichever way it works out, there's underlying genetic factors here that influence our behavior. Cultural and learned behavior can be overlain over that

It's built into our genes - everyone is well aware that young males go do stupid things like race cars, play chicken, beat their chests and go ooga-ooga over girls in bars and get into bar fights, and insurance rates for young male drivers reflects that reality. In its own way, its a kind of mating display but one that's deep-rooted in our genetic history, where the guy who was best at hunting, fighting to establish dominance, and securing food and shelter for his females was usually the most successful at reproducing and there's a multitude of studies on that as well.

There are genetic roots for this that go waaaaaaaay back into our early genetic evolution. The key to successful sexual reproduction can be traced to a single receptor in the brain, for example, according to a study from Stanford. The research, which was published in Current Biology, was conducted in fish, but the receptor responsible is present in all animals and has implications for understanding social behavior across all species of mammals because we all have the same receptor. https://news.stanford.edu/2016/03/18/fish-mating-behavior-031716/ - in mammals and other vertebrates, PGF2α promotes the onset of labor and motherly behaviors, and the new research, coupled with other studies, suggests that PGF2α signaling has a common ancestral function associated with birth and its related behaviors. Which in essence is what reproductive behavior is all about and thats what sex is at heart, argue it as you will. It feels good to lure you into reproducing! Anyhow, there's a common thing here around reproductive displays by the female arousing the male. Thats not how they put it but that seems to be what it boils down too. It obviously manifests itself in different ways, but there you are....

Now humans evolved slightly differently to similar species. We don't do the same visual displays around ovulation as many other species but at heart, reproductive strategies are at the basis of a lot of sexual behavior. Of course, most people don't like to think of it that way, and of course with contraception we can control reproduction, more or less, but at heart, sex feels good as an incentive to reproduce - and given the overheads in caring for babies and young children for so many years, it better feel damn good to make it worthwhile!

So you read all this bullshit about women not dressing to attract men and the like, but at its heart, it's designed to visually appeal to the male of the species and incentivize him to get it up, get it on, and make babies!!!!! And THAT is deep-rooted in our genes. There's different forms of display across different cultures, = paint, beads, feathers, eggshells, lingerie etc etc etc. And that carries across species as well - its deep rooted in our common genetic ancestry across all mammals, as you can see from that Stanford study.

Now humans have diversified a bit from our nearest relations. In chimps and baboons, females have visually noticeable sexual swellings when ovulating that inform the male that its time to get it up and get it on. Human females have no such bodily displays, and human mating behavior has generally evolved to favor pair-bonding - the lack of female human visual cues to ovulation status may be related to this move to pair bonding, where its counterproductive to female survival to inform other males in the vicinity that its reproduction time. Human sexual behavior has also evolved along different path, in that human males are not cued to get it on by the female's ovulatory status, altho a lot of guys do get a woody if they think they're impregnating the female - just look at all the impregnation stories on Literotica! Empirical experience of my own says the same thing. LOL. Anyhow, human males want to get it on all the time, and human female sexual behavior has evolved to make females receptive to sex at all times (thats a generalization, but essentially for all intents and purposes thats the behavioral pattern).

 

[ChloeTzang]

So we all wanna fuck like...humans...lol, but absent visual cues, we females have to arouse the male of the species, and we all know visual cues work real well on males (yep, that old PGF2α receptor at work, guys) so rather than physical changes, we adorn ourselves with feathers LOL. Well, and lingerie, or clothes or whatever, and you guys respond as per cues, and its game on..... so when you eye a human female in a bikini and experience sexual arousal, its your genetic ancestry hard at work - thats the way males evolved, and thats the way females evolved. The actual variations on the display itself are mopre cultural, but the need to display and the arousal as a response to that display are deeply rooted in our common inter-species ancestry.

Your PGF2α receptor is now hard at work if you're a male.....

 

[NotWise]

Maybe I'm alone here, but lingerie doesn't do much for me. I prefer women naked. Given a gallery of photos, I'll usually skip to the point where the model is naked.

I always thought that women's sexwear was more for the woman than the man. The woman in my WIP dons a leather harness (fetish wear, not bdsm), and it's her idea, not his. It makes her feel extra hot, and he likes the idea enough to make a gift of it.

 

[Seadog777]

It's all about the Anticipation of discovering the treasure underneath.

It makes the finding of it, all the most delicious.

 

[TadOverdon]

I admit that I don't get this one. I understand the appeal of stripping, but the preference for one kind of attire versus another leans a little into fetish territory, I suppose. If it's not your thing, it may be opaque.

My personal preference in writing is to get people as naked as possible as soon as possible. Visually, I'm more interested in what kind of clothing they wear on the street or the office.

A friend once said to me, "Guys buy women lingerie as presents, but they're really just buying themselves gifts."

 

[yukonnights]

It's all about the Anticipation of discovering the treasure underneath.

It makes the finding of it, all the most delicious.

Of the many opinions above, I tend to agree most with the "anticipation" aspect of lingerie / sexy clothes. It's kinda like saving the best parts of a meal to the very last bite. In my current WIP, I have this as an example of that; The husband's thoughts following a conversation weighing the idea of maybe finding another couple to try the swinger lifestyle with.
****

"So my lovely lady, since it appears I have your okay with being married to a bisexual man, do tell me more about this swingers website you've discovered."

"I'll get my computer and show you!"

I watch in quiet admiration of her beauty as she walks away to get her laptop — with growing arousal fueled by thoughts of us trying the swinger's scene, I watch as she walks back in wearing the same skin tight boy-shorts — but now also wearing one of my button down shirts — the buttons undone and just barely concealing her breasts — the gap at the apex where her thighs meet her pussy allows a perfect view of her concealed folds and prominent mound — just seeing her is all I need to start feeling the swelling in my own pants.

 

[TheRedChamber]

Maybe I'm alone here, but lingerie doesn't do much for me. I prefer women naked. Given a gallery of photos, I'll usually skip to the point where the model is naked.

I always thought that women's sexwear was more for the woman than the man. The woman in my WIP dons a leather harness (fetish wear, not bdsm), and it's her idea, not his. It makes her feel extra hot, and he likes the idea enough to make a gift of it.

You're not alone. Lingerie can be fun, but at the end of the day I prefer to look at fully naked ladies. But the nice thing about lingerie is that it is coming off at some point, so why not both?

On the other hand, there's only one way to be naked and a million different types of lingerie. So it can add spice. The other thing, and I'm going to have to tread carefully in how I say it, is that not everyone has a perfect body and lingerie can help to accentuate, hide or lifts parts as necessary - it can certainly made the wearer feel more confident.

More than anything though, I'd say lingerie is a statement. There are a vast number of rules for what women can where when and what this signifies. Even just having lingerie in the wardrobe signals that a woman is sexual and has a certain control of her sexuality. (Unless of course its an unwanted birthday present). A lot of modern books on feminism talk about how women 'peform femininity' in all aspects of life. The sexy lingerie show is an extreme version of this. You can do all of that naked, of course, but even just putting the items on signify the start of a kind of roleplay.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Your PGF2α receptor is now hard at work if you're a male.....

View attachment 2192591

Wait, what? Recliner lounges and hammocks?

 

[SimonDoom]

So we all wanna fuck like...humans...lol, but absent visual cues, we females have to arouse the male of the species, and we all know visual cues work real well on males (yep, that old PGF2α receptor at work, guys) so rather than physical changes, we adorn ourselves with feathers LOL. Well, and lingerie, or clothes or whatever, and you guys respond as per cues, and its game on..... so when you eye a human female in a bikini and experience sexual arousal, its your genetic ancestry hard at work - thats the way males evolved, and thats the way females evolved. The actual variations on the display itself are mopre cultural, but the need to display and the arousal as a response to that display are deeply rooted in our common inter-species ancestry.

Your PGF2α receptor is now hard at work if you're a male.....

View attachment 2192591

I think this works in reverse as well. In my experience, women are EXTREMELY attuned to, and interested in, what men wear, although they're not necessarily interested in revealing, skimpy clothing the way men are. Women notice good shoes, a smart tie, a pressed shirt, good colors and fabrics and fits -- things that suggest taste, confidence, and success. That's a generalization, but it's one I've often found to be true.

 

[MillieDynamite]

I admit that I don't get this one. I understand the appeal of stripping, but the preference for one kind of attire versus another leans a little into fetish territory, I suppose. If it's not your thing, it may be opaque.

My personal preference in writing is to get people as naked as possible as soon as possible. Visually, I'm more interested in what kind of clothing they wear on the street or the office.

A friend once said to me, "Guys buy women lingerie as presents, but they're really just buying themselves gifts."

It doesn't have to be lingerie, a sleeveless T, with midriff showing, obliviously no bra, nine mil bullet nips pushing the material, showing their own glory, and crowing perfect mounds of breasts flesh, and skin-tight shorts work's rather well.

 

[ChloeTzang]

I think this works in reverse as well. In my experience, women are EXTREMELY attuned to, and interested in, what men wear, although they're not necessarily interested in revealing, skimpy clothing the way men are. Women notice good shoes, a smart tie, a pressed shirt, good colors and fabrics and fits -- things that suggest taste, confidence, and success. That's a generalization, but it's one I've often found to be true.

Oh yeah, but think about it in terms of what I wrote. All of that stuff spells out status and the ability to provide. Which, as a generalization, is one of the factors that attracts women. Gotta have a guy who can provide for those end results of procreative activity. Again, step back from the immediate visual appeal and think of the underlying genetic roots of behavior. In our culture, thats all the stuff that says oh yeah, here's a provider. In the middle ages, maybe is armor and a sword. The visuals depend on the culture and whats important in that cultural context, but regardless of culture, the underlying behavioral response and causation is the same.

Ditto lingerie. I mean, the bdsm and kink and different types of lingerie is the veneer, but the underlying behavioral pattern and reason is the same. LOL

 

[ChloeTzang]

Wait, what? Recliner lounges and hammocks?

Funny guy

 

[Voboy]

A piece of art might be dazzling in itself, but the right frame can elevate it. I think of lingerie as a frame. And that's not to objectify women; it's to point out that a woman appearing in lingerie is seeking visual impact, just as an artist is.

Plus, putting that shit on takes time and effort. That's time and effort a lover can appreciate a woman spending. Lastly, I know that many women in lingerie feel like men when they put on a proper suit: it makes you carry yourself differently, more confidently.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

For the same reason why many men would find arousing, let's say, a woman wearing a side slit skirt and just getting a glimpse of her thigh, much more than a woman wearing shorts that reveals her thighs completely. We like a hint of sexuality rather than seeing it bare open.
Us men, we are such subtle creatures, unlike you crude women...

 

[Seadog777]

Oh yeah, but think about it in terms of what I wrote. All of that stuff spells out status and the ability to provide. Which, as a generalization, is one of the factors that attracts women. Gotta have a guy who can provide for those end results of procreative activity. Again, step back from the immediate visual appeal and think of the underlying genetic roots of behavior. In our culture, thats all the stuff that says oh yeah, here's a provider. In the middle ages, maybe is armor and a sword. The visuals depend on the culture and whats important in that cultural context, but regardless of culture, the underlying behavioral response and causation is the same.

Ditto lingerie. I mean, the bdsm and kink and different types of lingerie is the veneer, but the underlying behavioral pattern and reason is the same. LOL

I wear flannel, blue jeans and work boots. Does that count?