My own prison: Adventure with corsets

Saturday afternoon and I’m bent over my bed, begging Vanessa to try harder — to zip up my… Saturday afternoon and I’m bent over my bed, begging Vanessa to try harder — to zip up my corset. I exhale and exhale again, getting lightheaded, trying to compact my ribs and shrink my torso and fit into this creation of polyester and plastic bands.

‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ In the end, the zipper breaks — not because the corset, purchased less than 24 hours before, doesn’t fit, but because the zipper comes clean off, and neither Van nor I can jam it back on.

‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘It’s okay,’ I tell her, and, for the time, it is. I wear something else; something more suitable and less wired, a shirt striped with red glitter that somehow gets all over me and needs to be scrubbed off. Two days and four showers later, I still find some between my toes.

‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ But that is not the point. The point is why, as a liberated woman, taking pride in self-sufficiency, do I want to wedge myself into something that women spent hundreds of years trying to escape?

‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ I was headed to a goth concert and needed a fitting outfit. I had everything planned ‘- pants with chains and D-rings, striped stockings, knee-high boots, leather coat and, to up the ante, a corset.

‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ The ante was upped, all right. In the two seconds I had the thing on, I felt decidedly more ladylike. Back rigid, belly sucked in, I knew what it was to be vulnerably attractive — someone sexy who, if she dropped her keys, would have to rely on the kindness of strangers to retrieve them from the asphalt.

‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ Corsets are, by their very nature, uncomfortable. I’ve worn a few — one for a high school production of ‘Much Ado about Nothing,’ one at a Renaissance fair and one this past Saturday. They fold ribs, rearrange breasts and are, in general, onerous things. They recall times where swooning couches were standard in your finer sitting rooms and women had to be shy and retiring.

‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ But corsets also make you look, well, hot. They push things up and down and slightly inward, sculpting a pronounced hourglass figure from whatever raw material they’re given — in this case my decidedly apathetic torso. They’re sexier than control-top stockings and more effective than, say, sucking it in. Scarlett O’Hara wore one — shrinking her already impossible 16-inch waist to a mere 12 inches — and even though she was not beautiful, men hardly noticed, because she was, to put it bluntly, stacked.

‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ Here’s a catch, though: In addition to being unable to breathe deeply, you can’t put a corset on by yourself. Really. I tried, and bent double and nearly did a back flip in a dressing room, but, short of dislocating an arm, there’s no way.

‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ In days of yore, corset-wearers had to have someone around to do up their stays ‘- be it sister, mother or handmaid. All of this was indicative of the taboos against women living alone. The whole Virginia Woolf notion of ‘a little bit of money and a room of one’s own’ — her ingredients for being a successful writer — couldn’t be achieved when you needed two or three people to help you put on what is essentially underwear.

‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ Vestiges still exist in women’s clothing — the backwards buttons and bra clasps, for instance, come from a time where women didn’t dress themselves, a time I returned to as I made Van zip and rezip my corset. ‘Mammy, come here and do up my stays,’ I said. She laughed and complied.

‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ But now I do have the option to live alone; it’s not frowned upon or thought suspicious. I can dress myself, in the manner of my choosing. Provided I protect myself against frostbite and indecent exposure charges, I can wear whatever I want.

‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ Reflecting on this, I can understand how the idea of being made an object of attraction, rather than a participant in it, relates to corset wearing. This get-up denies basic things like deep breaths and vital organs; my spleen, should I ever be able to locate it, will never forgive me. By forcing women to wear corsets, they were made immobile and weak. And, from that, they became objects rather than subjects, more decor than citizens. And why would society let people who were constantly lightheaded vote?

‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ But, being Halloween season, perhaps my corset-wearing is not so much a reversion as a costume. We are told that our identities are encapsulated in the clothes we wear, and my corset is a conscious escape from my usual identity — not so much a political statement as an artistic one. Perhaps it is my subtle paean to the season.

‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ And perhaps it is just a manifestation of my need to harness what was once a method of subjugation and claim them. It isn’t as intense as the gay community claiming ‘queer’ or feminists claiming ‘cunt,’ but such things often come in baby steps rather than giant leaps. What once oppressed now liberates — and, if I am not breathing deeply, I am at least breathing freely.

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E-mail Sydney at sbergman@pittnews.com before she passes out.