Sex History

I’ve researched and written a lot about vintage nylon stockings over the years because the history of nylon stockings is quite fascinating to me. I’m sure most of you have heard about the scarcity of nylon during WWII — just months after the new invention hit store shelves on May 15, 1940. Even silk stockings, second choice to the preferred fit and feel of nylon, were in very short supply as silk was also used for the war effort and the war itself interfered with over-seas shipments.

...Here, 1942 Hollywood starlet Kay Bensel applied her faux stocking seams with a device “made from a screw driver handle, bicycle leg-clip, and an ordinary eyebrow pencil.”

Dating from the 1870s, the historical hosiery comes embroidered with the royal VR monogram and will be auctioned off by Tennant’s Auction House in Leyburn, North Yorkshire, on Friday (April 26).

Social history author Dulcie Lewis, from Carperby, near Leyburn, has written a book on the history of women’s undergarments, entitled Casting Off The Corsets: A Brief History of Underwear.

She said Queen Victoria’s under garments do occasionally come up for sale as she would strangely  give away her underwear as presents to people who worked for her.

You know how girls in college like to experiment… Strip down to their undies — and play with knives. 

Yes, Virginia, like courtesans who rouged their breasts (or, more accurately, their areolas), flappers heightened the color of, and therefore the attention to, their knees. My guess is though, that they rouged post placement of their stockings.

Now, what about the women-watchers who feel they are the victims of another kind of put-on? We're talking about the men who think there is nothing in this world (or beyond it) as mentally, physically and spiritually inspiring as a beautiful pair of female legs, improved by the addition of sheer, skintight hose. These men -- loyal, upstanding Americans every one -- have spent their whole adult lives admiring the legs of American girls and bringing them the worldwide recognition they deserve. And for these men, nothing did it like nylons that ended halfway to two-thirds of the way up the thigh, supported by taut garter straps. There was no reason, in their view, for women to change this fashion. Perfection had been reached -- with the possible exception of slightly shorter skirts to enhance the tease.