#obviously if your corset/binder is painful that's a bad sign

[brasskingfisher]

Have to jump in here as a historian, but I suspect the reason may well be that corsets and binders (as I understand it) are designed to do different things.

The basic idea of a corset is to support the female lady breasticles and stop the wearer from breasting boobily (the compression forces more of the soft tissues in the middrift under the breasts, and the boning works the same way as the underwire in a brasserie to provide shape), hence why every woman in a costume drama wearing a low cut dress has a cleavage you could ski down. However, binders (AFAIK) are designed to compress the chest and remove the physical evidence of the wearer's breasticles, and work more like male corsets which are longer and encompass more of the torso (the vanity aspect is that wearing one makes you look slimmer/more broad chested by hiding your gut (ask any man to suck his in and you'll see the effect)).

The oft reported deformation of the ribs and displacement of the organs caused by corsets only really happens when you're wearing a tight laced one for hours on end (as in reducing your waistline beyond 6 inches (up to 4 inches off your waistline is generally the recommended amount) for 10 hours a day over several months or more).

THINGS I NEED TO FUCKING KNOW: Why every fuckin trans man or nb person I know who binds is like “oh binders are the worst, you can’t breathe in them, I know someone who broke a rib once”,

And meanwhile over in historical costuming, we are fucking eating, sleeping, swordfighting, riding horses, and feeling great like this:

(credit: Jenny La Flamme, The Tudor Tailor, Verdaera)

Like is there NO overlap between people who want to bind and people who care about accurate 16th century clothing reconstruction techniques?

(I, okay, maybe it is kind of a niche interest, but…. REALLY? Anyone who’s made a boned binder, PLS SPEAK TO ME)

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