More on stockings

While I was doing some shopping I came across this advice in an online stocking shop. It’s taken from their forums, I think. A recently divorced man asks for advice on finding a woman who understands his stocking fetish.

He makes a couple of mistakes I think. He assumes that all men are mesmerised by sheer nylons. Not the case, in my experience. He also thinks that men are equally interested in stockings and tights – my experience only, but most men I have met find stockings sexy and tights unsexy (although some men seem to be into ripping tights, but that’s another fetish again, I suppose). Worst of all, he calls tights ‘pantyhose’ – I wanted to stop him right there. And if he sees a woman who isn’t suitably clad, he’s quite put out: “Nothing is more disappointing to me than to see a beautiful woman dressed beautifully wearing high heels and bare legs.”

But it’s the answer that’s the problem. Instead of looking for a fellow fetishist, the guy is advised to keep his desires hidden and find a (presumably) ‘vanilla’ (in the stocking fetishist sense at least) partner.

“Treat her like a lady. Do the things for her that make her feel good about your relationship. After you have a loving, trusting relationship, share with her your needs and your desire for a relationship with a lady that displays her elegance. Buy her gifts of fine lingerie, and sheer stockings.”

In other words, keep your fetish under wraps until you’ve sucked her in. Once you’ve got some commitment from her, present the fetish as something else (an admiration of her elegance). Then spend money on the fetish (disguised as ‘gifts’) so that she feels obliged to indulge it.

But isn’t this exactly the undesirable situation that so many people get into? Choosing ‘vanilla’ partners, and hoping to change them into something they’re not? Perhaps lying about their kink, or trying to present it as something else, or trying to manipulate their partner into fulfilling it? And what about the people who get deep into a relationship with someone who appears to be vanilla and sexually compatible, only to have some unwelcome kink sprung on them later?

If someone is single and starting from scratch, wouldn’t it be better to find a sexually compatible partner in the first place? In this guy’s case, it would seem like events are loaded that way anyway – he’s so disappointed by women without nylons that he’s only going to be attracted to women who are wearing them (and therefore probably like wearing them) in the first place. And whether they have a complementary fetish or not, wouldn’t it be more open, honest and potentially fruitful for him to come right out with the stocking thing at the beginning? After all, it seems to be a ‘need’ for him. There’s no point in starting a relationship if the person isn’t going to meet that need.

I’ve been through enough years of the ‘find a vanilla partner and convert them’ technique, to know that ultimately, it isn’t fulfilling. It’s a last resort, not a master plan.

We are all individuals! We are all different!

When I first found kink on the internet, it seemed as if it opened up a whole new world of People Like Me. Outside of those whispers with my childhood friend, I’d been pretty much alone. I’d had slightly kinky boyfriends, of course, but none of them went as far as me. It was rather to exciting to find that there were people out there who felt the way I did, and to meet them in real life and to be able to talk about this forbidden stuff.

But several years later, I’m finding that I still haven’t met anyone who is exactly like me, sexually. I’ve recently got back into reading people’s weblogs, and I’m finding I’m a bit of an oddity. Maybe it’s not just me, maybe we all are. Maybe our kinks are so individual, that it’s unlikely we’ll come across anyone who is exactly the same.

So what’s so special about me? What sparked this post off today was reading the latest instalment of Bitchy Jones’s diary. I love reading her posts, and very much agree with her idea that ‘femdom’ is misrepresented. When she describes what it feels like to hit a man, I feel so glad that somebody else can explain how sexy and compelling this thing is. But then I read about her opinion on stockings and strapons, and realise that I’m out on my own again. Yes, only men are supposed to like stockings. But my stocking fetish goes right back to childhood, and there’s nothing I can do about it. Recently I’ve been reading some posts about humiliation, and again, I’m reminded that nobody feels quite like me.

This is why it’s impossible for me to leave my boyfriend (I still haven’t thought of a name for him), of course. We don’t have exactly the same kinks, but we’re so close that it works very well. It’s more than that: he understands and doesn’t question my kinks. There’s no ‘why on earth would you be into that?’. I could have ended up with somebody who liked being hit, but didn’t like the other stuff I like. I say ‘like’ as if these things are mild preferences, when in fact they are more like cravings, obsessions, compulsions.

And that’s the huge challenge for kinky people, isn’t it? Finding somebody who is compatible enough, sexually, to practice our kinks with. (If they’re compatible as a partner in other ways, we must treat them like the precious rarity that they are and never let them go!). Nice as it would be to have someone other than your lover understand you, it’s probably too much to expect to find friends, acquaintances and fellow bloggers with exactly the same kinks too.