Lust Life: Panty Pleasure

A FEW YEARS ago, my friend had his Japanese lover stay with him for a week. Soon after she left, he was entertaining another woman in his apartment. As they made their way toward the bed, he saw a pair of panties peeking out from under the sheet. He quickly, surreptitiously grabbed them and stuffed the evidence under the mattress. She never noticed. A couple of days later he threw away the panties, not thinking about their value. Now his tale is told with regret: “I should’ve kept them! If I had known they were worth something, I would’ve sold them on eBay!”

You can’t buy dirty panties on eBay anymore, but the used panty trade is in no danger of dying. There are thousands of websites devoted to the fetish. A guy known as “Panty King” claims he inaugurated the cyber panty trade using crude technology back in 1983. Around the time the Japanese supposedly started dispensing used schoolgirl panties from vending machines, Panty King created the first official panty-selling website. When eBay began clamping down on used panty auctions, Panty King developed the first online auction venues dedicated solely to panty bidding. The niche has since expanded to classified panty-selling sites, dirty panty chat rooms, and an increasing number of personal sites run by individual women (and men) selling their worn underwear and other “unmentionables.” .

Once I spied a lover sniffing my own worn panties. It amused me more than anything and throughout the rest of our affair I delighted in throwing my panties in his face. He would inhale them deeply and smile with exaggerated satisfaction. It became an ongoing joke: “You’re going to steal those, aren’t you?” “Oh yeah…” he’d sigh, as he stuffed them in his pocket. Underwear has a universal mystique, even if you think panty sniffing is gross. Seeing a sexual partner or potential lover in his or her underwear turns us on because we know we’re so close to the ultimate unveiling. There is a fascination with the final barrier, what treasures lie beneath the sheath, whether it’s a thong, bikini, or brief. Prolonging the release of the throbbing cock or dripping pussy from it’s moistening fabric prison can be as erotic as holding off orgasm until you can’t stand it anymore…sometimes it’s better not to take it all off. Women who cum easily can cum with panties on and guys need only to push aside a fold. Underwear is no limitation to sex. Maybe that’s why Victoria’s Secret is so successful. Maybe the store should start dirty lingerie.

The used panty fetish is unique because everyone is in some way turned on by underwear. There’s the guy who passes the lingerie store and stops to look at the window display, imagining his wife wearing the thong clinging to the mannequin. There’s the woman who loves seeing her boyfriend’s erection poke through his boxers. Consider the girl who feels sexier wearing a new pair of satin hipster panties, even though no one can see them. How about the female executive who’s feeling a bit naughty because she’s wearing lacy lingerie underneath her conservative suit? It’s now even considered standard business attire for women to wear a camisole under a suit jacket.

The fetish simply is normal underwear fascination taken to another level. In Japan, panties represent untouched innocence, the soon-to-be violated schoolgirl. This association is the core of “buru-sera,” a term specifically referring to the sailor suit style uniform Japanese girls wear to junior high and high school. Girlish youth is considered to be so sexy in Japan that adult women often exhibit childish behavior in an erotic context and teenage girls have profited from selling their panties to porn shops.

The industry may not be as extreme in America, but it is growing despite morality-driven online regulations. Says Panty King, “I’m certain that the used panty community will continue to grow. Thankfully for used panty fans everywhere, these problems haven’t appeared to affect the smaller, ‘personal’ panty seller sites. However, I do think that we may see some changes in the manner in which these exchanges take place. We are likely to see a gradual change toward more closed and discreet selling options and transactions.”

As long as panties exist, there will always be a way to buy them used. They inspire fantasies, taking on a character of their own: white cotton curious virgin, red thong nympho, black latex dominatrix. Some panty princes are only concerned with possessing the panties belonging to the one woman he loves, while others don’t care where they came from, as long as they’ve been in contact with a female crotch. The former motivation intrigues me more—when the panty becomes a secret between lovers, an object that brings someone close to his or her lust muffin’s most intimate parts. I could make money off my panties if I wanted to, but I don’t need to sell them to know their worth.