I used to love lingerie. I saw it as something beautiful. I felt beautiful and sexy in it. How could that be bad, right?
Then randomly one day a question came into my mind. Maybe it was God, maybe it was my brain, I'm not sure. But it asked:
"Where did you LEARN lingerie was beautiful and sexy?"
I was kind of startled by the question. Ha I was like, uh, what do you mean where did I LEARN? It just IS beautiful. Its always been beautiful.
But then the question came again.
"But WHERE did you LEARN it was beautiful and sexy?"
I had to really ponder and dig into my memories on this one. We aren't born believing lingerie is beautiful and sexy. There are probably indigenous tribes who would see our lingerie for the first time and think we were ridiculous! So where DID I learn it was beautiful?
And then it hit me.
TV. Movies. And sadly....PORN.
My first exposure to lingerie was seeing women wearing it in TV & Movies. They were ALWAYS beautiful, and sexy, and POWERFUL. All the men wanted them and instantly "fell at their feet" so to speak. And as a child my tiny brain interpreted that power to mean that those women were LOVED.
Beautiful + Sexy = Love.
I wanted to be powerful. I wanted to be LOVED like that! (Who wouldn't?)
After I got older and sober I learned about good ol' lust and fantasy.
I can now look back and see ----- those women weren't loved. Were they powerful? Yes. But they weren't loved. They were LUSTED after. They were devoured. They were "feasted upon". They were an OBJECT. It was all a fantasy.
In my heart all I really wanted my whole life was to feel LOVE. I craved connection, growing up I just simply learned how to find those things in all the wrong places. And if that lust and fantasy weren't really love nor connection, did I REALLY want my husband to see me like an object to devour? (Don't get me wrong ha, my addict brain still says YES and wants to be an object, those urges don't automatically go away considering they were ingrained into my brain for 20+ years ha, but now being 8 yrs sober my "thinking brain" is in charge and overrides the addict brain. It becomes stronger and stronger each day that I'm sober).
REALITY VS FANTASY
So what purpose would wearing a tiny piece of sexy lingerie in front of my husband serve?
If you look at the way the brain works, there's a part of an addicts brain that does not differentiate between WHO is wearing the lingerie.
When a brain has already been programmed to sexually bond with things like sexy lingerie, objectified women, fantasy etc. through porn, then when they see lingerie their brain naturally brings up all the other times they've seen it including the feelings they felt while watching it because that's what the brain has been WIRED to do for years and years and years. Addiction corrupts brains. Their "habitual lust" towards sexy lingerie/clothing doesn't get turned off simply because their wife wears it.
It would be like being obsessed with chocolate covered chocolate cake and habitually eating it for years and years and then putting a chocolate covered vanilla cake that LOOKS just like chocolate cake in front of you and telling yourself not to salivate because "it's vanilla". The brain doesn't work like that. (Especially if you consider how lust and porn are a billion times more potent than chocolate cake.)
I want my husbands brain to chemically bond with ME and my body, not with what I'm wearing. If he's busy looking at the lingerie on my body, he's seeing the lingerie first, not my body and not ME as the owner of my body.
Although honestly I can't say lingerie is bad for normal healthy couples that don't have addictions in their marriage...well... because I simply don't know. I am an addict. I have no idea what normal feels like. I will never know "normal". 😂
But for me, no lingerie. Not anymore. I don't need to mimic the very thing that my husband is addicted to. And now that my husband has been sober and doing really good, he admits lingerie would trigger him to lust after me like an object. It would feel like a double standard to tell my husband --- "DON'T lust after other women in lingerie, its bad! But here, its OK to lust after me in lingerie".
I AM ENOUGH (DAMMIT!)
I want husband to know I'm ENOUGH just the way I am. Ha even if I'm wearing pajamas, my hair is a mess and I look like a disaster. I no longer view sexy the way the world views sexy. Heck I don't even like the word sexy. But I believe REAL "Sexy" is all about being VULNERABLE, being comfortable with my body (with the lights ON. Eeek!), staring into each other's eyes and being connected IN the moment. I don't need a tiny piece of lacy clothing OR to be objectified in order to feel beautiful, to get "in the mood", or to make sex more fun.
Sex has now become a spiritual thing. And after learning how to be vulnerable, connected, and fully PRESENT in the moment, sex is more exciting and enjoyable and fulfilling than porn, lingerie, lust etc. EVER has been or ever could be. It never gets boring. It never gets dull. It actually keeps getting more phenomenal the better we learn to be vulnerable.
So In the end for me, lingerie would detract from the amazing experience sex is and is meant to be. It could never enhance it.