No Women for Lingerie: This V Day, I’m Stepping Away From the Lace

Can we please talk about the point of the entire V-day exercise – which is to get laid by the end of the night?

So Valentine’s Day is here and the pressure to enjoy a date is becoming quite unbearable at this point.

I don’t think there is any festival that holds a candle to Valentine’s Day when it comes to thrusting an intimate, rose-scented, overpriced dinner with loved one or current lay, as the case may be. Now, I could go on a rant about how it’s grossly commercialised and how pink teddy bears make me barf but that would be such a bore. Can we please talk about the point of the entire exercise – which is to get laid by the end of the night? And while you are probably going at it like bunnies and love yourself some BDSM all year long, apparently the only kind of sex you are allowed to have on V day (which you may confuse with Vagina Day, which it isn’t...but come to think of it, okay no) is the slow, sensual kind.

While the unwritten rules of V day include causing allergic reactions with flowers and buying your partner huge, stuffed hearts that say ‘I Love You’ – or ‘I luv you’ if you are grammatically stunted – women also have to think about buying lingerie for this special day.

And this, as with everything else, is a dramatic affair involving laces, net, ribbons and crotchless designs.

Which is why I am swearing off buying lingerie for Valentine’s Day.

The Pointlessness of the Lingerie Game

Look, on an average day, buying lingerie of the sexy kind is already a complicated affair. Also, it’s a lot of money to spend on something which is basically like gift wrapping and has to deliver an impact in about a minute or so – after which is lays abandoned and crumpled in a corner. And not unlike gift wrapping paper, it must be used again to ensure you get a bang for your buck. *so clever*.

Let’s just talk about the elephant in the room. No, not me. Lingerie was born with the sole purpose of getting the wearer some sweaty, intense action. So for it to be so unflattering is an epic fail. Take for example, thongs. For the uninitiated, these are very tiny pieces of clothing that give you a wedgie that you actually buy and pay for. Some people got those for free in school. Except for increasing rash creams’ business, I do not see thongs being very useful. Which brings me to babydoll lingerie dresses. This is where a fully grown adult woman wears a flimsy dress which leaves nothing to imagination but puts an awful lot on display. Because these are made for people that don’t exist, real women are constantly spilling out of them. When you are trying to be sexy, your love handles jiggling behind, you are very anti-climactic. The panties, usually lace but always itchy, hang so low on your hips, the stomach looks massive and the generous meal that you had doesn’t help.

There are times when you must take things into your own hands (no, not like that) and pick lingerie that’s strappy and looks sexy. The problem with lingerie that comes with more than two straps are multi-fold. One, it takes you a while to figure out what goes where – which can give you a headache, but that’s no excuse coz V Day.

Second, you may figure out how to get it on but taking it off involves some complex calculus and finding the value of X. Which may be a turn on for some but for the rest just becomes an engineering marvel. (I am convinced a man somewhere thoroughly impressed by a bra strap’s ability to hold such heavy loads in place is the reason we have bridges now.)

And while we are here, can someone please explain the reason to wear panties if they are crotchless? I mean, put in some effort, will you? People take longer to go in and out of revolving doors.

For now, I have plenty of money in my wallet and lots of comfortable, cotton underwear (that may be favoured by grannies but that’s another story) that works well on any day including Valentine’s Day. Because believe it or not, they don’t inspect your undergarments when you celebrate this day.

(Mansi Shah is founder of the blog Damsel in Destress which reviews experiences as varied as spas, books and plays. Mansi is, by her own admission, “clueless” at 30 with an easy penchant for humour.)