Dear Eva and Reverie, and anyone else.

I have just woken up at a totally ungodly hour (I kicked my duvet off!), and I logged on as it was too late to think of going back to sleep again, but too early to start the day properly. Anyway.............

Thanks for the invitation, Eva. As you know from our talks in the Forum Chat Room, corsets, along with Vicorian clothing, play a part in my D/s life with my owner. My first owner was not into them so I was really only introduced to the 'delights' of tight lacing some three years ago. Initally I didn't like it at all, but my owner DID, and so I knuckled down and now it's not quite so bad, although no-one is ever going to persuade me that being tightly laced into a 'real' corset (as oppoed to the flimsy things you buy as fashion items) is anything but a trial.

I have had two great advantages in starting to wear corsets: firstly I am naturally fairly tall and slim (okay, I am boasting but it's true; I am 5' 7"+ and when I started I was about 115 pounds. I am a few pounds lighter now.)
Secondly, my owner knows a retired corsetiere (right word?) who now works in retail but moonlights makng a few corsets for in-the-know clients. Unfortunately his stuff is very expensive so I only have two of his corsets; my other two being off-the-shelf.

(This doesn't seem to be the time or place to go into the technical details of corset wearing - my owner told me about the Long Island Staylace site about a year ago, prior to which all my own knowledge came from him. But I agree with RedEva that it's an excellent reference base for people interested in the subject. So if you want to know more on the technical side, why not follow the link Eva gave in her first posting here.)

I suppose that I wear corsets seriously - as underpinings for the Victorian-style clothes which are really my subbie uniform (which sure makes a change for things like French Maids' outfits! LOL) So, Eva, Mark would NOT be amused if he discovered me drawing his bath while sitting on the edge of the tub with my legs crossed - NOT the sort of way he wants HIS subbie to act!

But regardless of their functional aspect, wearing corsets is a strange experience even after having worn them a lot for over three years. No-one is ever going to persuade me they are comfortable, and you have to move and act in a different way to normal (one of the first things I learnt to do was The Bunny Dip as it is impossible to bend at the waist when properly corseted. So to reach anything lower than arm's length you have to bend at the knees in a form of straight-backed curtsey which is a skill that took me a time to master.) Also, now that I am more severely laced up at times, I have learnt not to rely on diaphragm breathing, and bitter experience has told me what I can eat when corsetted (very little), and what I can drink (nothing fizzy).

A well made corset isn't necessarily painful, but it is uncomfortable when tightly laced up, and I have found that it does curtail what I can physically do. But 120 years ago, every self-respecting girl of my age and background would have been corsetted, so if they could take it all as being a perfectly normal part of life, I don't really see why I can't.

There are down sides to it, but there are also benefits, most important of all being that my owner likes to see me wearing a corset. And also because I think I look great in one............... (yes, it helps to be a bit narcissistic LOL)

I hope this posting helps get ths topic underway, Eva, and that other corset-wearers come out of the woodwork too.

Love Jane.