When menopause turns up the heat in the bedroom with a badly timed hot flush – and creates a crisis with a corset.
Dear Aphrodite,
After reading your musing, “I Dread That Little Blue Pill”, which made me laugh out loud and which I promptly shared with friends, I thought I should share my own story of tussling with a corset.
A few years ago, my partner would often buy me lingerie sets, mainly from M&S. They were always in lovely colours and, as he knew my size, they fitted well and were comfortable to wear.
Then one day he walked in saying, “I’ve bought you something special today.”
It was a black corset.
“Oh, right,” I said.
I’d never worn a corset before but, as I took it out of its packaging, it did look lovely and I became quite excited about how it might make me look.
My mind wandered to the Victoria’s Secret models with their nipped-in waists and boobs lifted and shown off at their very best.
That was the image I had in my head as I went off to get changed.
I put the corset on but needed him to help me because there were an awful lot of hooks and eyes at the back to do up.
Well, it certainly pulled me in at all the right places. I was amazed at how much it changed my waistline for the better! And it made my boobs look huge.
We had a great night and eventually it was time for sleep. He rolled over and promptly turned into a bear in winter hibernation. He could hear absolutely nothing.
I tried to undo the hooks at the back so I could go to sleep too.
At this point I should mention that there are only two positions in which you can comfortably exist in a corset once you’ve been wearing one for a few hours:
One is standing up.
The other is lying completely flat.
My normal sleeping position — curled up on my side — simply wasn’t going to happen.
The bones of the corset were beginning to dig in and felt like knives in my sides. They were pressing into places that were becoming decidedly painful. I was reminded of the scene in the first Pirates of the Caribbean film where Keira Knightley’s character faints because her corset is too tight and falls off the cliff.
So up I got and off I went to the bathroom to see if I could somehow get this contraption off.
After some interesting manoeuvres with my arms, much huffing and grunting and trying to put myself into positions I didn’t know were physically possible, one thought flashed through my mind:
I really should have taken up yoga.
By this point I was flustered, tired and desperate to go to sleep.
And then a hot flush started.
For one glorious moment, I seriously considered getting a pair of scissors and cutting myself out of the thing.
But knowing how much this little black lace number had cost, I thought better of it.
Back into the bedroom I went to wake my snoring chap.
After several fairly hefty shoves, I succeeded.
He opened his eyes and asked, “Sorry, was I snoring?”
“Yes,” I replied. “And I need you to get me out of this corset!”
By now, I had begun to really hate it.
He switched on the light and, squinting away, started fumbling with all the hooks and eyes.
Eventually, in his half-awake state, he managed to undo them all.
I was free.
Oh boy, you have no idea how good that felt.
The blood started flowing back into my organs and all my bits gradually returned to where they were supposed to be.
Corsets do look fabulous.
For a short time.
But not for six hours.
Like the Victoria’s Secret models, you need help getting into one — and you definitely need help getting back out again.
And where is the corset now, I hear you ask?
At the back of a drawer, where it has been for the past few years.
Maybe it will make another appearance one day.
But I definitely need to take up yoga first.
Anne, 59, Suffolk
The real thing: Anne’s corset, below.
