The true keepers of the Way of the Brassiere

Blokes Bust into Their Bra Fantasies

He enters the office, drenched from a sudden downpour. An assistant helps him remove his jacket. Suddenly, she gasps, "Sir, you're wearing a...." Brassiere. Underneath his wet shirt the clear outlines of a bra and the straps are visible.

Koichi, the 53-year-old manager of a construction company, tells Yomiuri Weekly that luckily, the woman agreed to keep mum.

He's one of a clandestine group of men who've taken to wearing women's bras.

They're not gay, transgendered, or even outwardly strange. They're ordinary men with wives and girlfriends. Many, like Koichi, are businessmen who conceal their bra under their conservative suit and tie.

Writing for Yomiuri Weekly, Mari Aoyama, a brassiere researcher with a free consultation service on the Web says she was surprised at the number of men seeking advice. There's even a Web Site for Men Wearing Bras, which gets an average of 1,500 hits a day, 580,000 in a year.

Says the web master, "These men are looking first for the right to wear what they please at home. Some end up divorced if the wife doesn't understand."

They think of what they do as an "interest," while the rest of society defines it as "perversion." Now, these men are finally starting to speak up. For solidarity, they hold off-line meetings in Tokyo, to which men ranging in age from their 30's to their 50's fly in from Osaka and Hokkaido, among others.

One participant remarks to Yomiuri Weekly, "I was worried that I was alone, but now that I know there are so many like me, I suddenly feel relieved and cheerful."

And how did their bra fetish begin? Replies one participant, "When I was in junior high, I secretly took my sister's underwear from the clothes line and tried them on."

"My girlfriend asked me if I wanted to try it on, so I did. And after that, I just couldn't forget how wonderful the underwear felt. After that, I could never wear men's underclothing again."

"Wile my wife was away, I ran out of underwear, so I borrowed her panties and tried on her bra as well. The sensation was unforgettable."

It seems that once these men hook on a bra, they're hooked for good, so much so that they can't work unless they're wearing one.

One lingerie shop tells Yomiuri Weekly that half their customers are men. And not all are buying them as gifts. Says a clerk at a brassiere shop, "Male customers have become more open recently. They're welcome because they buy so much."

Women mostly concentrate on the functional aspect of the bra, while male lovers of lingerie are into the lore, the history, and whatever else they can find out about it. For instance, one man has an extensive collection of magazines about women's underwear, enough to open a museum.

No doubt about it, men like these are the true keepers of the Way of the Brassiere.