The fetish of embarrassment - part one

(Edited from contributions to the Stockings HQ discussion forum)

"I am not a stocking fetishist per-se. My fetish is far more unusual than that. Put simply, the nearest I can come to it is an 'embarrassment fetishist'. A picture of a comely woman nude except for nylon stockings doesn't send me any madder than a 'normal' male. I appreciate it, yes, as much as I'd appreciate the aesthetic qualities of any lovely woman. But that's as far as it goes.

"On the other hand, if she's fully clothed, her suspender has slipped, and she is frantically trying to refasten it while desperately trying to hide her dishabille from public gaze, all the time blushing furiously… ahhhhh. Too early in this essay to give myself up to rapture, but believe me folks, it's a damn close run thing!

"It isn't only stockings of course. A showing (or bunched up) slip, a girdle that needs tugging, sagging pantyhose, a slipping bra-strap, even an untucked blouse does it for me. But stockings are the subject here, and stockings it shall be. So where to begin?

"They say fetishes start in childhood, and mine was no exception. As far as I can tell, scientists say that they are caused by 'imprinting'. To put that in lay-person's language, it means when one first starts to feel one's oats, whatever one sees at that time is what one will find sexy for the rest of one's life. In our 'natural' state, living in caves, it would of course be naked women one saw, all normal and above board. But in the modern civilised world it might be anything. Rubber boots. Surgical aids. Custard or cream... Sometimes I think a taste for women adjusting stockings is almost normal!

"My own sexuality began and grew in an atmosphere of cheesecake. My first erections, at the tender age of four were achieved while lying on the floor watching TV. All TV was black and white and fuzzy in those days (I speak of the early '60s). I had no idea of course that what I was experiencing was an 'erection'. All I knew was when thinking certain thoughts or seeing certain sights, I felt good. Deliciously wicked and happy. And I knew that these feelings had to be kept secret from the rest of the world. I thought, of course, I was the only person ever to have such feelings. I am sure we all do.

"There was a 'stream' or idea prevalent at those times that has almost died out today. The idea that a woman in distress… especially the type of distress that reveals something that modesty demands should be kept hidden… is delicious and sexy. A staple theme of comedy was a woman's skirt blowing up, a suspender (garter to our American friends) that has come undone, a dress riding up to show a lacy slip. Advertisements, too, were quick to pick up this theme. 'Wear OUR girdles and you will be spared this embarrassment' is the theme, as a woman tugs at a ridden-up 'long leg panty girdle' under the disapproving stares of the other guests at an exclusive dinner party. 'People will no longer laugh at you, if you wear nylons that fit' is the moral of a short vignette showing the beau-monde laughing at one of their number who is experiencing pantyhose wrinkles. And of course, women in distress… right from the days when they had to be rescued from dragons… have always been a condition of desire.

"Put these two together and you have my fetish. Women in distress, caused by mis-alignment of their attire. Expose a four-year-old boy to such, and he will have such a fetish for life!

"My earliest "sexual" memory is such a TV ad. It shows a handsome man zipping up a woman's dress. In hindsight, I can only assume the scene was backstage at a fashion show, for the woman runs smilingly out to join another gaggle of beautiful women. But the idea that she couldn't do herself up, needed a *man* to help her, gave me a delicious thrill. Another early memory is a comedy sketch, where a woman's dress is caught in a pile of suitcases, and she is trapped. She calls desperately for the porter, and the idea that she is helpless, unable to escape, and needs a knight errant to save her was one I turned over and over, in bed at night, as I learned to masturbate.

"Through my childhood I learned that other boys did not share the same sexuality. I learned to make the appropriate noises at nudes, 'dirty' magazines, girls with big breasts. But secretly I studied my female schoolmates, and teachers, for signs of clothing difficulties. Unfortunately, stockings were dying out in the 1970s when my 'adult' sexuality began to develop, but almost as a compensation, the new-fangled pantyhose were heavy on nylon, and badly made, making them sag constantly and require constant adjustment. I also remember movies, the old Ealing Comedies… one such classic, and after a gap of 30 years an obliging correspondent sent me a clip of the scene… is in Two Way Stretch starring Peter Sellers, where a young lady fakes suspender trouble, fastening it to distract the prison guards. Such things fed my fast-growing fetish.

"As I grew I became more sophisticated. I learned to examine every woman I saw, searching for the tell-tale wrinkles that meant my fetish could be gratified. In those early days it was easier, of course. Although stockings went into a decline in the early '60s, not to make their comeback until the early '80s, the early pantyhose (this was before Lycra) were very sag-prone, and I could tell of many incidents of seeing women adjusting themselves.

"I soon learned that women fell into various reactions when experiencing hose trouble. Some simply ignored the fact, walking around with baggy knees and ankles, or even with the hose twisted around their calves. Others scuttled out into a secret hideaway, a bathroom or corner, and proceeded to adjust themselves. Still others simply hoisted the errant hose up there and then, not caring who saw them. Still another would turn their back to the group and fix things, as if to say 'Yes, I *am* adjusting my pantyhose, but I'm doing it as discreetly as I can, so pleeease don't hold it against me'… A final group (my favourite) would stay where they were and ve-e-e-ry discreetly give their hose a little tug here, a small smooth there, whenever no eyes were upon them, working the hose back into respectability.

"Even things with an *implication* of hose sag turned me on at this point. If, for example, a girl's skirt blew up and I saw she was wearing a second pair of panties *outside* her hose this turned me on… I knew she was wearing them to keep her hose from falling down. An advertisement for girdles which had 'sponge gripper bands at legs to keep your tights and stockings from wrinkling' drove me wild. Hose advertised as having 'stay up power' sent me into a paroxysm of delight. Once a cousin visited, and just before she left went out into the staircase of our house 'to pull my tights up' and I masturbated over the incident over and over again!