Big Ed's Place

It doesn’t take much reading of my stories to realize I have a small lingerie fetish. Ever since I hit puberty, a woman in sexy underwear, particularly those styles that are clearly non-functional for anything other than sex, has been a pleasurable sight. A girlfriend once asked me to explain my appreciation of garter belts and stockings to her and I said it was two things. First, there was no reason for a woman to wear them unless she wanted to be seen in them (or more than seen in them). Second, garters to stockings provide a frame around her feminine parts. I happen to like Art with frames.

So I was pleasantly surprised to discover the site Art-Lingerie. It’s a soft core nude site, much like Met-Art or FEMJOY. In fact, many of the models appear on those sites as well. The photographic quality is similarly high. Samples are below. They have a new photo set daily and videos on Mondays and Thursdays. These are soft-core shots, so they’re largely single girls posing, though there are a few two-girl photo shoots. I haven’t found any more suggestive than simple posing, but then the archive is large and goes back to May 2009.

The site has a couple of features that I particularly like. One is its search function allows you to search by lingerie type. So “Red Hair, opaque black stockings and suspenders” is a legitimate category. The other thing is that it lets members identify other sites that carry that model. As a result, I quickly learned that my favorite redhead Ariel appears on over thirty sites. Alas, some of my other favorite models don’t have such a handy directory, so maybe I’ll have to hope that Art-Lingerie gets sets of those models (Nella, please). They also have some options to let you customize how the photos and videos appear on your screen and a ton of links to other sites.

So, what are the downsides? Well, first and foremost, it’s a niche. If you’re not into lingerie, particularly softcore nudes, there’s not much else here for you. Second, the selection rather heavily focuses on stockings and garter belts with the models otherwise nude. While that does happen to be my favorite form of lingerie, it’s by far not the only way sexy lingerie can be shown, as Playboy demonstrated with their special edition lingerie magazines and videos back in the 1980′s and 1990′s. It’d be nice to see more sets with models in teddies, cammies, bustiers, and other lingerie. It’d also be nice if these were selected more often as the cover image for the photo sets, as they otherwise tend to look all the same.

So I recommend it. You can check it out via the banner below.

In last week’s musing on lingerie, I told a story about my college roommate and lingerie. That reminded me of another story where the moral is about the value of being respectful.

It was early December one year in college. I’d gone shopping for a Christmas present for my girlfriend and, in walking through a strip mall, decided to stop in a classy lingerie store that happened to be there. Later I’d learn that it was the most high end store in town, but at the time, I was a bit naive. Nonetheless, I wandered in.

The store was impressive and the two older ladies working there were the definition of MILF, though that term didn’t come into being for a few more decades. I was clearly just a college student, in jeans and a sweatshirt, and definitely in over my head. Nonetheless, I knew my place. I was respectful to the ladies, and their wares. I wandered around and let them help me a bit, before eventually picking out an inexpensive purchase.

In the process, I spent some time talking with one of the ladies who turned out to be the owner. I expressed my admiration for the classiness of her store. As I was ringing up my purchase, she asked if I would like an invitation to a private lingerie modeling show the store was having the following week. I swallowed my surprise and said yes.

So the night of the party, I persuaded my roommate to come with me. I was a bit nervous and, well, he had a car and it would have been a long walk otherwise. We showed up punctually and nicely dressed. The owner remembered me, greeted us as I introduced my roommate and gave us each a glass of champagne.

Now, at the time we were under 21, which made it illegal for us to be drinking champagne. This was not, however, something we were going to call attention to. In fact, I consciously decided I would ‘act older,’ which meant doing my best to not appear like the neophyte I was. If we didn’t make jackasses of ourselves, I figured, no one would question what we were doing there.

To my then-surprise and now-not-surprised-at-all, the older men present weren’t under that constraint. Many of them were loud, openly lecherous, and drinking very heavily. The concept of ‘class’ was something I’m sure that some of them didn’t grasp. That was okay–it meant my roommate and I could just move away from them in the room, talk quietly, and not attract any attention.

So it soon became time for the modeling. The owner had the men form two lines that defined the sides of the ‘runway.’ The models (there were four) would change in the dressing rooms in the back, walk down between us, stop at various points to twirl and tell us what they were wearing, and then circle back after they’d completed the line.

That said, due to the layout of the store, it wasn’t a straight ‘runway’. It has a small jog, about eight feet long, to get past a heavy clothes rack. So the models would walk straight for a while, then make a 90 degree left turn, go about eight feet, make a 90 degree right turn, and continue forward again.

My roommate and I happened to be standing, quietly and respectfully, at the corner of the second jog. The most obnoxious older men were standing at the corner of the first jog.

This turned out to be unexpectedly significant, because when the models stopped at the other corner, they’d get catcalls and hands they had to bat away, and other immature behavior directed at them. When they stopped in front of us, they got smiles, comments like “wow, beautiful,” and the wide gaze of happy voyeurs. It took about two passes before every one of the four models was stopping in front of us instead of the other guys. They’d smile back, do their slow turns, and even flirt with us a bit.

Additionally, the women were wearing off the rack lingerie, which meant that many of the teddies and cammies and other silk tops were both scoop necked and loose. I’m 6’3″. That means when a model would stop in front of me and lean forward a bit, she’d give me a view straight down her top.

I saw many bare breasts that night. I even got caught, with one model asking, in a sultry voice, “do you like what you see?” I blushed, she chuckled, and she shook her breasts slightly to tease me even further. None of the models seemed to mind.

Now if this were an erotica story, one or more of the models would have gone home with me or my roommate. But, of course, I clearly had a girlfriend and they were clearly looking for their paychecks and then a chance to get out of there. So nothing much beyond the pleasure of looking at women in skimpy lingerie happened that night.

With one exception. Eventually the rowdy guys figured out what was going on and jokingly complained. The next model through told them that we were being respectful, and that’s why we were getting the better views. She then invited me to feel how soft the fabric of her outfit was. Which I did, to the envy of the other guys.

The experience stuck with me for some time after that. Being a respectful voyeur could pay off. And later, there were many times it did.

In my last musing, “Look at Me”, I waxed rhapsodic about exhibitionistic women. I thought I’d expand that with a riff of lingerie.

Lingerie is special. It’s not underwear–functional and only as decorative as it takes to make the wearer feel non-dingy. Lingerie is designed to be seen. It’s designed to say “look at me” to those eyes so privileged to see it.

Of course, without the energy and sexual attitude, it’s just clothing. Madonna’s outerwear lingerie in the 80′s wasn’t sexy at all, and pretty much failed to provoke me. The shock value was about all it was worth. It could have been on a hanger for all the sexual energy it conveyed.

My college roommate, in fact, discovered this when he was out buying lingerie for his girlfriend once. The very attractive sales girl asked, in a bedroom voice, if he wanted to see what a teddy he was admiring would look like the night he gave it to his girlfriend. He swallowed hard, with questions about fidelity running through his head. Eventually, he slowly nodded, hoping no one would find out about the ‘show.’

Except the sales girl then wadded the teddy up and threw it on the floor. “There,” she said, “that’s how it’s going to look most of the night.”

He laughed and bought it anyway. The sexiness of the moment, after all, had been in the innuendo and not the fabric.

But, as I said, when the energy is brought together with lingerie, it can be magic. By being impractical and just for the eyes, lingerie calls attention to what is not seen, or what it frames. A wisp of transparent chemise hints maddenly at magic underneath. Garters and stockings frame a treasure that might be in full view–forcing the eye to the center.

That’s why they appear so often in my stories. A woman in thigh high stockings, with or without a garter belt, has made the decision “look at me”. She wants to be seen as sexy, in most cases, and that makes all the difference.

I, for one, love the result.