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Leckrone, Meg. (1998, June 12). The Wast waist: effects of body modification. //Retrieved from// []


 * 1) For centuries, society firmly held the belief that women were weaker of mind and body. Treatise upon treatise was written on women’s weaknesses: women are timid, women faint at the first sign of danger, women are prone to disease.
 * 2) The truth behind many of these assertions is that for centuries, women had been restricting their lung capacity with heavily boned corsets. Smelling salts became an essential household item because women whose reduced lungs could not support the body’s increased demand for oxygen in stressful situations would "faint dead away" at the first sign of excitement.
 * 3)  “ The rights of women to vote, to hold property, to participate in higher education, and to hold public office were all won by women who, for the most part, had worn corsets their entire lives. Many of these women also realized how hindered they were by this inability to catch their breath, and loosened or cast off their corsets altogether to take better advantage of their freedom.
 * 4) To mold the body into the hourglass shape, the lower sections of the rib cage are pushed inward by the corset. The two sides of the lower rib cage, normally separated by a space, approach each other as the waist is progressively constricted.
 * 5) The internal organs are much softer than the bones in the rib cage, and can be forced to a much greater degree. The lungs, for example, can be crushed to the point where the miraculous little sacs that collect oxygen for the body’s use will not inflate. The stomach can be squeezed down to a flat little envelope that will accept very little food, resulting in heartburn and indigestion. The bladder can be kept to a very small size resulting, of course, in reduced capacity. All of the major organs in the torso are eventually affected by this phenomenon, and in every case their function will be impaired.
 * 6) The total effect of an overlapping rib cage and compressed internal organs would be of extreme discomfort and of uncertain health. Women who haplessly followed the fashion trends in the heyday of the corset often found themselves spending a great deal of time with their physicians.
 * 7) Many doctors tried unsuccessfully to convince their patients to loosen their laces as a way of relieving their aches and pains, but women were often as fondly attached to their corsets as some modern women are to their make-up.

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Valerie Steele, the widely published fashion historian, attempts to put the record straight in her book Fetish in which she says, "Although most Victorian women wore corsets, they were not usually tight-lacers with 16 inch waists any more than most women today wear fetish shoes with 7 inch heels" ===== =  =


In the late 1600’s, for example, the Puritans supposedly laced their corsets with religious fervour. To be without the confining garment, a woman was of loose morals and unsuitably dressed in the eyes of God. Those not participating in the Puritan’s faith would look upon the faithful as "straight laced," "stiff," and of "rigid morality." Indeed the garment was not so much a corset as we know it but more of a stiff linen bodice with a bit of boning. "Ladies with tight corsets do prey have done, > Lest fell disease precipitate your fate; > The nymph who truly cares for number one, > Should never seek to look like number eight." > From The Family Herald 1849 Dress reformers would have us believe a corset, if worn too tight, could cut the liver in two, cause infertility and insanity. A too tight corset can cause mental damage due to swelling on the brain or high blood pressure, characteristics which could also be passed onto the unborn child and therefore create future generations of weak, feeble minded souls.
 * 1) In the 1700’s the stiff bodice gained even more boning and formed the outer top of a lady’s dress which she could be sewn into every morning and released in the evening. These "stays" were not necessarily designed with human anatomy in mind and moulded the upper torso more than the waist thus forcing the bust upwards and creating a full, fashionable décolletage. Having worn such a corset for a Ball, I can confirm the true discomfort of wearing this type of garment for several hours.
 * 2) One feels to be in very real danger of suffocating and you must be careful not to panic. It is vital that you learn to breath from the uppermost top of your chest and not exert yourself in any way, and that includes climbing steps or more modern forms of dancing.
 * 3) During the Regency or Empire period fashions from Paris were influenced by Grecian and Classical examples in art and the corset was banished under loose fitting dresses more as a form of foundation garment, after all ladies still wished to keep their figures. This was frowned upon by the Emperor Napoleon who referred to the corset as "an assassin of the human race" because he believed women would not wish to have children if they wanted to wear their corsets
 * 4) During the Regency or Empire period fashions from Paris were influenced by Grecian and Classical examples in art and the corset was banished under loose fitting dresses more as a form of foundation garment, after all ladies still wished to keep their figures. This was frowned upon by the Emperor Napoleon who referred to the corset as "an assassin of the human race" because he believed women would not wish to have children if they wanted to wear their corsets.
 * 5) One finds this amusing as it was he who was responsible for the destruction of most of the male populace in France in the first place! It is also during this time that men became more concerned with their waistlines and adopted the corset too, and so the Dandy was born.
 * 6) The cut of his jacket and tightness of his trousers left little to the imagination and a narrow waist was demanded to "cut a dashing figure" for civilian or officer gentlemen.
 * 7) The rest period for women was short lived and from 1830 the design of the corset evolved into a more recognisable form with accent on the waist, gussets for the hips and support for the breasts.
 * 1) The corset gave women an increased sexual desire making them wanton, immoral and unfit to be mothers. The supposed danger of breaking in two was also always present alongside numerous deformities, fainting fits, miscarriages, psychoses, redness of the hands, feet and nose (probably actually caused by chronic alcoholism) and the swelling of the extremities.
 * 2) Contemporary doctors have since changed their tune claiming that corsetry can cause shortness of breath, indigestion and varicose veins. However, if worn moderately and sensibly laced, the corset will present no danger and indeed is very good for the back and figure control.
 * 3) The start of "figure training" with a girl’s first corset began at about age 13. "To be placed into a corset properly, a mother should advise her daughter to lie face down so that having a foot in the back (small of the back), the mother can secure a firm purchase on the laces."
 * 4) "Figure training" was thought to install the virtues of womanhood; submissiveness, self-denial, endurance and the willingness to suffer on behalf of men. In the book Fashion and Fetishism by Dr. David Kunzle, he sites several more of these popular anti-corsetry beliefs.
 * 5) "Women who publicly proclaimed, in word and deed, that they tight-laced to please men were not affirming to their subservience to the male so much as asserting their right to appeal to his - and their own - libido. In doing so, they drew upon themselves accusations of infantilism, barbarism, sexual depravity, masturbation, drug addiction, atheism, and most frequently of all, contempt for the sacred duties of the mother.
 * 6) The accusation of tight-lacing was a serious one. It cannot have been easy for any girl or young woman, whatever her compensations in the form of male admiration, to cope with being officially branded as a depraved, criminal being, as a potential infanticide and wilful destroyer of posterity."