Pleased As Pants

Once again the blogosphere has smiled its bounty on Puss; yesterday, a disc arrived from Quinky containing more French popular music from the last fifty or so years than any pole dancer has a right to. Bless him for that. I shall be trying to pole dance to some of it this weekend in my quest to try out different types of music and see how it affects the way one uses and moves around the pole. I’ll let you know how I get on. For the moment, I’m really enjoying this song, and while it’s slow and mournful (despite the quite cheerful content), I think it could engender quite a sensual, graceful pole performance.

In other news, The Grauniad ran this article today on the boom in expensive pants. I’d probably go further than the journalist, who argues that our taste for costly lingerie, in direct contrast to our demand for cheap clothes, is akin to that for shoes and handbags – the desire for perfect accessories that speak of our individuality and our need to treat and reward ourselves. In other words, rather than being seen as necessary and functional, we are spending more on the non-essential and impractical, and swanky smalls epitomise that. I can buy that, but I’m more with Danae Shell, who edits Knickers: A Lingerie Weblog – a favourite read of mine: "[Lingerie]'s a silky little secret you carry around with you all day, hidden underneath your boring day-job clothes as you go through your boring day-job day. It's a reminder that we're beautiful and confident and don't have to look amazing for anyone but ourselves."

What is most interesting is that women are buying expensive and exclusive lingerie for themselves alone. Sure, a partner will doubtless enjoy it too, but I, along with many women, buy lingerie principally to tickle my own fancy. In an increasingly depressed retail market, luxury lingerie brands are flourishing, and I celebrate this, for to me, it says that women have discarded the old roles; we are no longer whores or virgins, we can be neither, or both, simultaneously if we please, or we can invent our own identity, an identity that accepts, celebrates and enjoys our feminine sexuality, without apology or shame, but with glamour and, most importantly, with humour.

Has Burlesque brought about this seismic shift in women’s perceptions of themselves as women as this article suggests, or is the rise in popularity of Burlesque indicative that we have finally cast off both the subservient identities ascribed to us by patriarchy, and those asexual, baby-with-the-bathwater ones offered by our feminist mothers? No idea, but I’d be interested in your thoughts on the matter, Gentle Reader.

*The most wonderful knickers above are by Damaris - a favourite of mine, and cost a cool £95. If anyone fancies furnishing me with a pair, I'm sure my gratitude would extend to a photograph of me wearing them.

** I can't believe I just wrote that...

*** But I did, so...