There's something I need to get off my chest, if you'll excuse a little double entendre; it's my disenchantment with the sorry state of modern women's underwear.
Not since Howard Hughes invented the cantilevered bra for the buxom actress Jane Russell in the film The Outlaw has ladies' lingerie owing more to civil engineering than to fashion, style or even sensuality been so de rigueur.
Walk around almost any lingerie department these days and you'll find that underwear which promises to lift, tuck, plunge, push up, sculpt, minimise or enhance women's natural attributes is everywhere. This kind of heavy-duty gear has become so common that you'd be hard pushed to get your hands on ordinary decent underwear which just lets you be yourself.
Biggest cleavage
The Wonderbra, which has been with us in one incarnation or another since the 1960s, has been superseded by the likes of the Ultrabra Super Boost, Gossard's newest offering which boasts a "continual wire casing system" that which will give you the biggest cleavage ever - or your money back!
What was the point in our predecessors throwing off their boned choristers and burning their bras as symbols of female oppression if we find ourselves now reverting back to underwear with in-built scaffolding?
Clothes reflect moral, social and economic changes and underwear design certainly says a lot about women's stance in society at a given period. Today, at a time when outer clothing is reflecting youth culture and becoming increasingly casual, it seems ironic that women are being offered underwear which seeks once more to straightjacket us in wire and padding. So much for female emancipation and gender equality. Forget all that stuff about your minds, women; men still only love you for your cleavages. Isn't that right, boys? Underwear that seeks to dramatically modify a woman's body cannot be designed by people who love women's different shapes and sizes.
Now, under the Ethics in Irishwomen's Diary Act, I have to confess that I once bought a Wonderbra, but purely on the grounds that it was the only strapless bra I could find that didn't cut off my blood supply.
I also have to admit that I once wore my mother's "rollons", as they were then euphemistically called, when I was going through a bit of a beerbelly stage at university. I needed them to fit into a certain long, salmon-pink, tight skirt which was a hand-me-down from my petite older sister.
Wriggling
The name roll-ons implies that these were undergarments which you could effortlessly slip into, as if you were applying a dash of underarm deodorant or a lick of lipstick. Not so. The effort of wriggling your way into the industrial-strength fabric made you reluctant to have too much to drink in order to minimise the number of traumatic trips to the toilet. Remember those television ads for the 18-hour girdle where a woman in a tight dress muttered: "Oh, I forgot I had it on"? Nonsense. You could never forget you were wearing roll-ons, principally because they interfered with your ability to breathe.
So there you have it: I'm not immune to making efforts to counteract my physical imperfections. Nor am I opposed to women trying to look their best. What I do object to is women forcing themselves, sometimes literally, into underclothes which do not celebrate the female form in its infinite variety, but seek to homogenise and control it, pull, push, sculpt or mould it into the desirable silhouette of the age. Could you imagine men with beer bellies paying out £40 for a reinforced girdle to contain the flab?
Marks and Spencer
To illustrate my original point further, let me take you on a brief stroll of the underwear department of Marks and Spencer. I single out this venerable department store because apparently almost every woman in the Western world buys her underwear there, including the Iron Lady herself, Margaret Thatcher.
There's the Padded Push-up Bra; the original T-shirt Bra, (padded for enhanced cleavage); the Three-quarter Cup Underwired Bra; the Plunge (designed for maximum cleavage); the Half-padded Balcony (straight neckline, wide-apart straps and cutaway shape); the Minimiser (reduces your bust size, both comfortably and naturally to give your clothes a smooth line); and the Glamour Extra (glamorous bra for the larger bust designed to give shape and support).
That's not to mention knickers, which come with low leg-lines, high leg-lines, or strings. They include waist and tummy shapers and bottom and tummy shapers. The message is that with the right undergarments, a push-up here, a sculpt there, you can counteract all your so-called imperfections.
The bottom line is that underwear should be both practical and sexy, but not an exercise in cosmetic surgery without the scars. You should feel comfortable in it, not a prisoner to it. Oh, and by the way, Jane Russell never wore the bra Hughes designed for her. Perhaps she just "forgot to put it on".