A bodystocking—or body stocking—is a one-piece, skin-tight garment that covers the torso and legs and sometimes the arms. It is a foundation garment or a piece of lingerie, usually cut from a sheer fabric like stockings or pantyhose, or from fishnet, lace, an opaque knit, or some mix of those. It is not a unitard, which you wear as an outfit, and it is not a leotard, which acrobats, gymnasts, and similar performers use as practice or stage costume. A bodystocking is designed to be seen without being fully naked: revealed, but not too revealing. Belly dancers and exotic dancers wear them as undergarments for exactly that reason. For fetish and lingerie readers, this is the garment that turns a body into a continuous sheer or fishnet surface—good for striptease, good under a short dress, good when you want coverage that still photographs as skin.
Sheer, opaque, fishnet, lace, and how you put one on
Bodystockings are often sheer and worn with or without other underwear such as a bra. Stretch versions normally come in only two sizes. People wear them for the smooth line they give, or because they cannot come untucked from trousers or a skirt. Worn as underwear, a bodystocking is usually not paired with other underwear. Panties can be added for extra coverage; a bra can be added for extra support. Sheer ones are too revealing to wear alone. Opaque ones can stand in for tights plus a blouse. Makers also ship fishnet, lace, and satin; the satin may be only the top half, so the piece can sit under a suit jacket and work as a blouse. Those dressier cuts also come sheer, which lets the wearer go more revealing on the outfit while still getting a smoothing layer. You put a bodystocking on through the neck, the same way you put on tights: roll the body and arm sections down, scrunch the legs like stockings, put one foot in and pull that leg up, then the other; from the waist pull the suit up over the torso to the chest; scrunch the arms and feed them in the same way as the legs; then adjust, and tie any ribbons or fasteners. Because it is close-fitting and one piece, the wearer may have to take the whole thing off to use a toilet—unless it is a crotchless cut, which also exists. If the bodystocking is a foundation layer, the clothes on top have to come off too. That on-and-off hassle is part of why crotchless fetish versions sell: the sheer body stays on during sex.
Menken’s Mazeppa, The Birth of the Pearl, Eve and Godiva
Nobody has a clean date for the first bodystocking. The first famous use is American actress Adah Isaacs Menken in 1861, in the play Mazeppa, drawn from Byron’s poem of the same name. She played a Ukrainian man whose enemies tie him nude to a wild horse. On stage Menken wore a flesh-colored bodystocking so she could keep her modesty and still give the illusion of nudity. The stunt caused controversy—the whole point of a nude-colored second skin is that the audience is invited to stare and then argue about whether they saw a body. A flesh-colored body stocking appears again in the tableau-vivant short film The Birth of the Pearl (1901): an unnamed long-haired young model in a direct frontal pose, offering a provocative view of the female body through a garment that pretends not to be there. Other awkward stage and carnival roles have used the same trick, including Eve in Biblical dramas and Lady Godiva in processions. Related garments include the bodysuit and zentai. For kink and adult-video audiences, the bodystocking is still doing Menken’s job: a washable, repeatable illusion of nudity, or a fishnet and lace version of the same idea that leaves nipples and cleft visible while giving a producer something to light. Whether you buy sheer, opaque, lace, or crotchless, the garment is lingerie that behaves like a full-body stocking—and that is exactly why it belongs in a fetish wardrobe as well as a dancer’s kit. The same flesh-colored trick that let Menken ride as Mazeppa and let the 1901 Birth of the Pearl model face the camera still sells: a washable nude illusion, or a fishnet and lace version that is meant to be seen. Two stretch sizes, on through the neck like tights, off again if you need the toilet unless the cut is crotchless—that is the practical fetish-lingerie spec, from exotic-dance underlayer to bedroom second skin.
