Love and Lingerie: These Sweet Nothings Whisper Renewed Romance

With five days left until Christmas, Victor Ceporius has narrowed down the list of potential gifts for his wife of 25 years.

The 56-year-old real estate agent may put black stockings into his wife’s stocking. He might slip a prettily wrapped merry widow under the tree. Or he may buy her a particularly alluring pair of panties. But it will definitely be lingerie.

Call it the gift that keeps on giving.

“Nothing is more of a turn-on for a guy than knowing that [his wife or girlfriend] is wearing lingerie,” says Ceporius, who lives in Arcadia. “It is not the nakedness that is sexy; it is the teasing. It’s magic . . . the garter belts, the panties, the titillation of it all.”

His wife welcomes the adornments.

“I love it,” says Marnie Ceporius, who works at a South Pasadena dancewear store. “I am flattered that after 25 years of marriage . . . he thinks I look good in it. In fact, I can’t wait to see what he is getting me for Christmas.”

*

Lingerie can be mutually gratifying. While men enjoy giving it, women can be profoundly flattered to receive it (unless--gasp!--he buys it too big). Such a gift is the equivalent of bodily worship; it tells a woman that she is every bit as sexy as Victoria’s Secret models in angel wings and Wonder bras.

For some women, wearing racy underthings is a kind of aphrodisiac, getting in touch with their inner seductress and erasing the trappings of motherhood, work or body-flaw self-consciousness.

“We had been married for several years when my husband gave me a totally sheer leopard-print body stocking for Christmas or my birthday,” says Dawn Mayeda, a 44-year-old San Diego marketing executive. “I had had reservations about my figure my whole life, and it felt like an incredible vote of confidence. My favorite part was that he thought of me that way.”

Some women buy their own lingerie, hoping to spice up the sexual menu with a wardrobe of high-powered under-gear. “I buy it because I think it adds another dimension to sex,” says a 44-year-old Tustin mother who claims that lingerie helps her switch from Mom to tart. “The nature of men is to like variety. It keeps things interesting. And when they get turned on, you do.”

*

Of course, G-strings don’t give every woman that sexy feeling.

“My husband buys me stuff all the time . . . stockings and G-strings,” says a Santa Ana hairdresser, who will wear the stuff to bribe her husband to attend functions he’d rather not. “It does something for him, but it does nothing for me. He thinks there is nothing wrong with my body. I feel stupid wearing it.”

Some men are fans but are, frankly, irritated that some lingerie requires Houdini-like skills to remove.

“It is very visually thrilling, but I find that the reality of it is a pain,” says Alan Clark, a 31-year-old Venice writer. “It is buckles here, and how do you undo that?” (Despite these quibbles with the mechanical problems, Clark concedes that he once bought a girlfriend a black merry widow.)

And though many folks are dreading a last-minute trip to the mall at the height of the Christmas rush, Victor Ceporius is actually looking forward to it:

“I plan on doing my Christmas shopping in the next couple days,” he said. “Part of the fun is shopping for the lingerie and anticipating what it will look like on her.”

Birds & Bees is a weekly column on relationships and sexuality. Kathleen Kelleher can be reached at kellehr@gte.net.