You do act differently when you're in it

Lingerie and Femininity

Bibliographic Data

ID3640488
AuthorsR Wood (0000-0002-0053-2969, University of Sussex, corresponding author), Rachel Woods (0000-0002-0165-5987)
Year2016
Volume25
Issue1
Pages10-23
Publication date2016-01-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Gender Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0958-9236 • E-ISSN: 1465-3869
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/09589236.2013.874942
OpenAlexW2038873872
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited26

This paper examines British women's accounts of buying and wearing lingerie taken from in-depth interviews exploring experiences of shopping in sex shops. Lingerie forms one part of a sexual consumer culture that is positioned within a neoliberal discourse of postfeminism. Women's engagement with the representation of lingerie, the way they enact lingerie buying and wearing in their everyday lives and the ways they speak about these practices show complex and often incongruous strategies of accommodation and negotiation. Such strategies can make lingerie pleasurable and liveable whilst at the same time expressing forms of anxiety, ambivalence or laughter directed towards the performance of femininity and feminine sexuality required and represented by lingerie. I contend that it is precisely through this often contradictory engagement with lingerie that strategic counter discourses emerge, by which women can resist some of the respectable norms of female sexuality. Women position themselves in ambivalent ways in relation to the visual imperative of feminine sexuality represented by lingerie, particularly through an embodied discourse of comfort and discomfort, or through the playful and pleasurable performance of non-naturalised gender roles

Ambivalence · Femininity · Feminism · Human sexuality · Masculinity · Negotiation · Social science · Sociology · Fashion and Cultural Textiles · Gender Studies · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Psychology · Sexuality, Behavior, and Technology · Social Psychology

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