sallycinnamon78
New Yorker
The first paragraph is VERY tame in comparison to what follows, so please bear with me. Read this bit and then look at the picture link and you'll see what I mean...
Then, 'Will' ordered corsets for her while she was pregnant:
Now, be brave. Go look: http://www.ethelgranger.com/index.html"In the 1930s we meet a young couple, Ethel and William. Ethel wore the shapeless dresses of the 1920s, had short hair, and didn't wear a corset, high heels, or earrings.Whenever William saw a woman who did wear any of them, if she was wore a corset. The corset that Will ordered without Ethel's knowledge had a waist size of 20". At first Ethel was not happy with this corset because not only was it long, its stays were extra stiff. She could not move her body easily.
Ethel soon became accustomed to this corset, which gave her a beautiful figure. Pain and discomfort [...] were not a problem in order to please Will."
Then, 'Will' ordered corsets for her while she was pregnant:
I ordered a the corsets, for Ethel without her knowledge, with a 20 inch waist, a regular listed size. (They could be got down to 19 inches waist without need of a special order.) In fact I also ordered a pair of the elastic inserted ones for her maternity wear in the later stages of pregnancy.
I told her that I had said before we married that I wanted her to wear real corsets. She picked them up, took one look at the colour, shape and size, felt the boning, then flow into a rage.
I had told her that was one of the attractions I had given up when I came to her from Mary who had worn corsets of that kind for years without harm.
Even then she stormed and wept, as she surveyed herself in the glass, saying that she could never go out like that, for she felt imprisoned and rigidly confined, so unable to bend... I was delighted with the improvement and had no hesitation in telling her so. I
. I said, ““This is so much nicer to hold you now. I love the feeling of firmness and stiffness. Besides, your waist is now so well defined and your breasts supported in the right position, I can feel them near me. At last you look like I hoped you might.”
She said, “Do you love your little Effie now she has given in for you?"The fool's explanation? "Perhaps my interest in these things came from my early reading, in particular I remember old illustrated Fox's Book of Martyrs in which were illustrations of all kinds of fiendish tortures done in the name of religion. The tortures were horrible but in a way stimulating..."
http://biography.ethelgranger.com/000000948f0dab307/00000094900a1fc01/000000948f0eb0801/index.html
OH MY GIDDY AUNT BELINDA. What a lovely, romantic story - I DON'T THINK. Ugh! Had I been Ethel, I would have booted Will firmly into the middle of next week - while wearing those huge high heels that he loved so much, of course.
As for the website: it asks "what inspires someone to strive for the smallest waist on earth?" Body dysmorphic disorder, perhaps?!
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