Advice from three of EMandLO.com’s guy friends. This week they answer the following: “– What is up with the sexy Santa lingerie meme?” To ask the guys your own question, click here.
Married Straight Guy (Jake): This one is all about word association and sneakery. Santa determines if you are naughty or nice, sneaks into your house in the middle of the night and leaves you something. It is almost automatic for the male mind to transfer this to a sexy red lace-clad hottie, a naughty one, jingling your bells with her one horse open sleigh.
Single Straight Guy (Megan): There is a fetish for everything: stuffed animals, high-heels, latex, role-play and even Cloverfield monsters. The sexy holiday thing is another one of these. And there are enough guys who are into — or at least enough guys who’ll fall for a marketing gimmick — to make it mainstream. Personally, I just can’t get behind, as it were. There is nothing less sexy to me than the thought of my partner in an outfit that reminds me of four-legged animals with pointy antlers; the icy North Pole; tiny, Spock-eared toy-makers in green skirts made of burlap; and the presents I didn’t get for Christmas. My partner in a Santa outfit is as sexy as watching David Hasselhoff eating a cheeseburger off the floor. I’d rather listen to Mike Tyson and Gilbert Gottfried sing Christmas carols than see my lover jingle all the way in a stocking cap. All of that said, I think I’m going to have to try it. You never know, right?
Committed Gay Guy (Dwayne): Since the very first sexy Santa, the meme snowballed and now it’s just the done thing. Over the past few decades, the “trend” to wear sexy santa lingerie became mainstream thanks to its use in advertisements, appearances on YouTube, etc. Sex sells in our culture, from the “Sexiest Man Alive” and celebrity sex tapes to pundits debating Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann’s attractiveness; it gets everyones attention, especially men’s, and especially when linked to an icon. Of course, it didn’t hurt that dressing up in themed underwear is always a great way to shock and entice a lover (never worked for me — usually just gets a laugh). So it reached a tipping point, and since most people feel comfortable doing what “everyone” else is doing, it’s now a traditional part of our Christmas culture (like it or not).
Our “wise guys” are a rotating group of contributors, some of whom wish to remain anonymous and some of whom like the attention. This week’s Committed Gay Guy is Dwayne Resnick, a mid-20th-century decorative arts dealer in NY’s Hudson Valley; our Single Straight Guy is The Meeglet blogger Megan, a former librarian whose Men of the Stacks calendar benefits the It Gets Better Project, and our Married Straight Guy is Jake Kulji, a Minneapolis-based freelance writer who blogs at Analogue Living and who has written two Minnesota hiking and camping guidebooks. To ask the guys your own question, click here.
All I can say is thank goodness I’ve never even heard of sexy Santa lingerie, let alone heard of it as an outright fetish.
Going back at least to the advent of color photography you’ll see a lot of images of bikini- or lingerie-clad Santa’s helpers though.
For what it’s worth, the runners in the picture remind me less of Santa than of peppermint, which I think might be the real secret. Red and white go together nicely, the holiday connection makes the combination especially cheery.
A more ominous question to ask seven months from now is… what’s up with the red, white, and blue sexy Uncle Sam lingerie! 🙂
figleaf