...

[kaberett]

So I have spent Several Years being utterly perplexed at the idea that it's impossible to put a corset on without help from a second person.

It has literally only just occurred to me that my complete bafflement on the topic might be because my shoulders are hypermobile.

Is-- is that it? Is that why there's this bizarre incomprehensible cultural meme that the only way you can possibly put a corset on solo is with the aid of a coathanger and a doorknob? ENLIGHTEN ME, INTERNET.

Comments

[liv]

I was the opposite: I spent years feeling inadequate cos I can't put a corset on on my own, and therefore thinking I don't really have the right to wear them. And some friends assured me that it's completely normal to need another person and I'm not just too uncoordinated to wear fancy clothes. My problem is not entirely that it's hard to reach behind my back, but that I get confused by all the loops and ties as well.

[kaberett]

Oh pfff no you absolutely do (which clearly you do believe now!).

Getting confused/losing track I can very much understand (I think I'm helped here by the amount of braiding my own hair and horses' hair I've done over the years) but I don't see that the well-meaning supportive advice that made 0 sense whatsoever to me would help with that.

And, to be clear, I think it's completely reasonable to need or want other people to help -- I've just spent several years quietly politely perplexed at the very vocal parts of the internet I'd seen suggesting that doing it solo was just straight-up across-the-board impossible or at best very unusual, which didn't tally at all with my experiences -- and as I say I've only just realised this might be because I've got a substantially larger range of motion even in my "good" shoulder than is normal!