A Cotton Sex Kitten

I have a drawer full of lusty-busty lingerie, as I like to call it. Being a newly married woman, there was a party thrown in my honor to outfit me with all sorts of racy and lacy unmentionables to ensure a long happy marriage filled with mad, passionate love-making sessions. But, since this is real life and not the pages of a lingerie magazine, my lumpy, disproportioned goosebumped body doesn’t ever seem to look right when strapped into a contraption made of lace, silk, wire, and little else … and I just don’t feel right.

I try very hard to work these items into my nighttime seduction routine, but time and time again, I reach past the padded satins and the feathery frou frou for what feels good—the white cotton tank top and black cotton underwear. Luckily, my husband and I tend to agree that not only does it feel good, but it really looks good too.

I love wandering through the lingerie section of Barneys New York or Neiman Marcus as much as the next woman. I enjoy looking at gorgeous bras and underwear that cost so much I’d have to work them on the streets to pay my rent. The craftsmanship, design, and intricate detail that blends to form these wearable works of art call out to me, telling me I need to wear them and strut around my apartment wearing high heels, thing-high stockings, and vampy red lipstick to seduce my gawking husband. As I’m standing remembering all the articles I’ve read to the effect that we women are letting ourselves go if we don’t fork out the big bucks on our undergarments—and actually considering purchasing some self-esteem—the strap from my well-worn white cotton bra slips off my shoulder, snapping me back to reality. Back to the comfortable world of women’s lingerie that I live in.

Why is it that lacy lingerie is supposed to be the spice that keeps romance alive and cotton kills? Lace is a Brazilian supermodel, but cotton is your mom? Lacy and racy is for athletic bedtime endeavors but cotton is for snuggling? If you’ve ever spent any time in a feather-framed stringy thong or a lacey slip with garters then you know that being a Brazilian supermodel lookalike performing athletic sexual feats is more “fore-work” than foreplay. It can be difficult to focus on seducing your partner when you’re simultaneously worrying that the small band of lace between your legs is going to shift and chafe and that escaped tit is turning an unflattering shade of blue squished outside its underwire cup. Or worse still, you’re worrying that an overly tight garter belt is going to snap and slap you in the rear.