HEY, CAP! Check out a q&a from Josey's column this week! (But nobody else read this. It's between Eric and I.
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Dear Josey,
I’d like to know about corsets for men. Can one really reduce one’s waist through wearing a tight corset? What are the dangers? Do you know anyone who makes corsets specifically for men?
Waistline Wonders
Dear Waistline,
Corsets have made a fashion comeback thanks in part to goths, S/M practitioners and trendsetters who enjoy both the aesthetic and the body-challenging joys of corsetry. And there are plenty of folks into “tight-lacing,” that is, using corsets to change their body shape permanently.
Most famous among the men who do this is body-mod guru Fakir Musafar According to his website (fakir.org), he was intrigued by the waist-cinching practices of the Ibitoe tribe from New Guinea, whom he’d read about in encyclopedias. He began emulating their garb, which included an extremely tight belt that forced a young man’s body into wasp-like proportions. By age 19 (he was born in 1930), Fakir was using belts to constrict his waist to 14 inches, and in his early 30s he fashioned a handmade corset that cinched his waist to 19 inches.
For men, he says, corseting “enhances sexual experiences,” partly because of the visual beauty of a tiny waist, but also because “all your internal organs and your sexual components are in different positions with different tensions... it’s very ecstatic.”
I’m a fan of breathing and keeping my internal organs where they were designed to be, but if interested, there are basic steps on tight-lacing safety at
www.waspcreations.com, a website created by Amy Crowder, a corsetiere who has been practicing tight-lacing for over a decade.
One rule: Don’t be cheap. While a good corset will set you back $300 or more, according to Crowder, “a corset that is poorly designed can cause damage to the back, pinched nerves in the pelvis and legs, abdominal cramps, and so on.”
Since male bodies have different needs, Crowder also designs custom corsets specifically for men. Romantasyweb.com also offers information about corsets and designs models like the Corvest specifically for men.
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